gentlemen we welcome you to our hearing today on contingency contracting and implementing a call for a general form we have with us today the top acquisition offense of the department of also have with us the distinguished former undersecretary of defense for acquisition technology and logistics dr jack gensler who chaired the commission on army acquisition management for expeditionary operations we thank you and thank you for your long service again so let me begin by recognizing that we are today here today to discuss most serious problems problems with a contract those are in part the result of actions taken by congress by our committee the late one nine hundred ninety s we tried to cut the so called whose detail ratio of the defense department in so doing we pushed you to significantly reduce the size of the acquisition workforce snow clear that just as the army is combat for acquisition workforce was cut too much when the wars in afghanistan and iraq began the army like the capacity to manage the explosion in contingency contracting the result has been disturbing mismanagement of contracts and press and waste and high levels of outright fraud which all of us joint contingency contracting policy and urge you to establish a contingency contracting corps you know two thousand and seven mill was damaged depending on contracting integrity and dragging you to expand the joint policy to areas and requirements and program manager in two thousand and eight bill senate colleagues and we created an acquisition workforce development fund and we require you to work with the state department and usaid to clarify interagency responsibilities for management of contractors and contracts we also work to address policies which you discourage highly skilled civilians from a core function of the army but is especially critical in this era where contractors on them or soldiers on the battlefield is simply not being organized manned or resourced properly your report calls for a cultural shift in the army and i agree with your assessment and give our former colleague pete geren a tremendous amount of credit for it question your study i believe however that will also require great leadership on his part to achieve the cultural shift in the army that's needed although he's not here with us today mr parsons hope you will take back this committee's continuing deep concern about getting contracting right the single most compelling area of your recommendations for me came in your focus on general officers within the chain of command for contracting we look forward to hearing from all the witnesses about how the department will make its decision about this critical issue and whether legislation is needed me also commend you doc again sir for taking tackling this issue of country and devoted fans interagency partners in your report as i mentioned we require the department of defense state in the usa today to address the issues in the memorandum of understanding that is due this summer but i'm also interested in your idea of an integrated expeditionary committee and i hope that all our witnesses will address the issue of how we manage contractors on the battlefield when those contractors work for and report to agencies across the federal government will look forward to your testimony and turned out to my friend ranking member duncan hunter to thank you mr chairman and thanks for calling this very timely hearing and before we get started i just wanted to recognize that we have a dear friend of mine vernon oakley who was with me in the in the army and nine hundred sixty nine and nine hundred seventy is with us today with a with a contingent of distinguished veterans from from the virginia north carolina area and i'm sure glad they could they have an opportunity to come in and and to be with us today this is a very timely hearing but we appreciate a gentleman to our witnesses we appreciate your being with us today and and i'm glad that we had a chance to schedule as he because i think it goes to the heart of the effectiveness and efficiency efficiency of our operations in iraq and afghanistan i think that one of the best services we can provide our war fighters to improve their readiness today and to improve the way we fight in the future is to capture the lessons learned that we've learned about how to rapidly and ethically provide goods and services to our fighting men and women during every major conflict in our nation's history the united states has learned to rapidly perk you're the equipment and supplies needed by our war fighters the price we've paid for these lessons is heavy it's often paid in the blood of our sons and daughters and every time the conflict is over the capabilities we've gained atrophy or are subsumed by the peacetime bureaucracy we can't allow this to happen again and that's why i believe that that effective contracting is at the very heart of our ability to effectively win wars and defend this nation when the games were commission's report was released last november i have to admit that i read it with mixed emotions first and foremost i was pleased to see that an independent body validated many of my concerns and the recommendations made by this committee however i continue to lament the circumstances that led secretary gerund to authorize a commission and the time and money we wasted getting there i also continue to fear that d o d will only take partial steps to implement dr gans recommendations in any major military operation there will be individuals who see conflict as an opportunity for personal gain rather than a call to duty it's unfortunate but it's expected to a certain degree but gentlemen i'm afraid that inaction on the part of the department has in large measure allowed corruption to take root where otherwise would not in may two thousand and five this committee voted to require the secretary of defense to establish a contingency contracting corps and i can remember sitting down with our senior staff members and drafting that  legislation let me read to you briefly from the report accompanying the fiscal year two thousand and six national defense authorization act and i quote this corps would be directed by a senior commissioned officer with appropriate acquisition experience and qualification who when deployed would report directly to the combatant commander in an area of operations requiring contingency contracting support in addition this section would attempt to leverage contingency contracting assets in both deployed and non deployed locations to efficiently carry out the mission the contingency contracting core training of the corps would take into account all relevant laws regulations and policies related to contingency contracting and would be required even when the corps is not deployed the committee intends that the commander of the contracting contingency corps be appointed a c f a grade senior enough interact effectively with a combatant commander the committee believes that an officer in the rank of lieutenant general or vice admiral for the navy is appropriate for this responsibility the committee untinged that the contingency contracting cor maintains a sufficient level of readiness in peacetime to be able to rapidly deploy to emergency contingency operations the commander of the contingency contracting corps should consider the development of a standardized contingency contracting handbook which summarizes all relevant laws directives and regulations related to contingency contracting to assist the day to day operations of the contingency contracting workforce finally the committee urges that contingency contracting corps utilize an integrated contracting and financial management system to ensure that contracting opera ration is are not handled by technological limitations that can be easily avoidable through the use of readily available systems close quote that's what we said in two thousand and five that sounds an awful lot like the recommendations of the ganster commission but the department fought it with everything that they had they hated this idea of a contingency contracting corps and when it came time to negotiate with the senate who had been scrubbed heavily by the administration we were forced to compromise on a joint policy on contingency contracting in reading your testimony i see that the development of that policy has had paid dividends or would have paid dividends i have to wonder where we might be today if they did department had been more responsive instead of defensive or forget about two thousand and five where would we be today if the department had anytime in the intervening years implemented these changes on its own all the same we told you so's  not particularly helpful in assisting you to move forward we want you to be successful i look forward to hearing more about the actions you've already taken and those that are in the works for example i understand that the army has created four can contract and support brigades that will deploy during contingency operations but right now each of these so called brigade is staffed with only one thousand officers and in ceo's how is the army planning to increase the size of these brigades ensure that they train with operational forces and maintain their contingency contracting competencies during peacetime i also understand that the army plans to place a two star in charge of the recently formed army contracting command now led by mr parsons but if the army has no general officers with experience in contracting how does the army plan to fill that ballot in the near term i would also like to explore more fully what dr gaines learned mr young the commission's recommendations regarding the increase in the number of general officer belts and billets at the defense contract management agency and dr gansler why do you believe that five army and five joint general officer billets represent the right balance and mr young in your testimony you allude to alternative approaches to the five hundred eighty three additional ballots for d c m a that dr gansler commission recommended are you at liberty to expand upon that statement finally i'll leave you with a parting recommendation i know that the report required by last year's defense bill regarding the implementation of the ganser commission recommendations is due at the end of may it was supposed to be do or earlier but the veto delay pushed a final due date to the right here's my recommendation if you wait until the end of may to submit the report it will be too late for us to assist you if the department needs legislative relief to fix these prevent provisions and if you wait until the end of may to tell us it will be a sign to me that the department is still not taking these matters so please do everything in your power to do the right thing now and in time to allow us to assist you it's unacceptable to punt to next year or to the next administration this committee will not allow that to happen on the backs of our marines and soldiers so thanks to our for our military systems which had a number of a little in excess of three hundred thousand people basically two u s marine corps of shoppers of of acquisition personnel in the pentagon bureaucracy mr chairman we cut that down to about one u s marine corps of acquisition personnel i think that's plenty and and looking at the problems and the corruption that we saw in the contra acting  problems that have arisen in the last several years and the people who for whom bribery became a way of life those problems are not a function of too few people having putting more people into the acquisition corps overall than the huge peacetime bureaucracy that we have that does that does acquisition does not change the ethics of the few people who weren't in high level positions  who were who were united states military officers who who bypassed and neglected all ethical standards in interning to do basically a career of self dealing which has brought such a tragedy to this country and those in those areas that you and i have been briefed on extensively so i don't think it's a matter of of pumping in another marine corps sized body of professional shoppers to do the acquisition for this country i think it's a matter of having quality and capability but also having a contingency contracting corps which which works closely with the combatant commanders in the war fighting theaters to get what we need to get to our troops quickly and efficiently and and in some cases to cut away bureaucracy but in all of this there's no substitute for the honest and ethical soldier and we need to make sure that we've got only those people in those key positions so so thank you mr chairman for having this holding this hearing is very timely i welcome our guests there for a very fine public servants and on look forward their testimony so i think the gentleman then we will go to the witnesses  secretary your own parents thank you ranking member hunter and distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today the twenty is rightly focused attention on the department contingency contract capability as well as the increasing role of our contractors in our deployed forces operations the department is acting with deliberation and determination on the full spectrum of issues in this area i will comment briefly on the key issues seeking to move to the committee's questions for a number of reasons including the illegal actions of some people the secretary of the army requested an independent review and i believe the work done by dr gansler and his team have been very helpful to the defense department with regard to the ganser commission i directed the deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition technology jim finley to lead a task force to address the ganser commission's recommendations related to the office of the secretary of defense and to coordinate a comprehensive d o d response this task force is actively addressing every recommendation i would note the efforts of very experienced leaders in our team jay assad and dick inman to work these issues through a set of subcommittees and work them with the services so that we have a joint response a number of efforts were already underway in the department in advance of the commission report such as the contingency contracting handbook which we're using to train people similarly a number of concerns have been raised regarding the use of personal security contractors and in the iraqi theater i asked the deputy undertake undersecretary of defense for logistics and material readiness jack bell to coordinate the department's response to these issues the department as you know is enter into a memorandum of agreement with the department of state governing the coordination of personal security contractor movements and defining p s e activities in requirements d reinforced the training and certification requirements for these personnel and radiator rated reiterated that there are they operate only in self defense under the rules for the use of force with the help of congress the defense department is moving to enforce the uniform code of military justice and the military additionally juice extraterritorial jurisdiction act media to improper actions by contractors the department still has many actions to undertake some actions such as increasing the experience and skills of contracting officers and rebuilding the cost of contingency contracting capacity in developing senior leaders will require time i appreciate the congress's tension to these issues and i would ask for your skelton represent hundred distinguished members of the committee on the armed services thank you for this opportunity to pier before you to discuss the army's efforts to improve contracting operations in support of expeditionary operations since our last report to you  in keeping with the recommendations of the ganso commission secretary of the army pete geren directed the realignment of the army contracting agency to the army material command and the establishment of a two star army contracting command within the army material comm we established the organization on march thirteenth as a provisional organization pending approval of the concept plan that will formally authorize and resource this new command as the first executive director of the armed new army contracting command is my job to oversee and implement improvements to contracting operations especially in support of the expeditionary operation i have a written statement that i respectfully request be made part of the record for today's hearing without objection i would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee members and committee leadership for your unwavering support to our men and women in uniform mr chairman as you know the secretary of the army created the special commission on contracting led by dr jack vance were to look at the long term strategic view of the army's acquisition of contracting system in support of expeditionary operations the army contracting task force which was co chaired by lieutenant general thompson the military deputy to be assistant secretary of the army for acquisition logistics and technology and miss katherine condon the executive director to the commanding general of the army material command was formed to review current contracting operations and implement immediate corrective actions where need were necessary aga commissions for key recommendations for recruitment are consistent with the army contracting task force findings the army is making steady progress in addressing the structural weaknesses and shortcomings identified and we continue to work closely with the office of the secretary of defense and our sister services on the way forward it is clear that achieving our objective will require resources time and sustained leadership focus my written statement outlines the major actions taken to date which include accelerating plans to set up the contracting structure recommended by the commission and increasing the size of the contracting workforce as a result of ongoing operations in southwest asia the army has increased its focus on contingency contracting up until two years ago we didn't have  defined structure to support expeditionary operations or support a modular army and we now have established a contingency contracting structure that consists of contingency contracting support brigades contingency contracting battalions and four person contingency contracting teams we are beginning to fill with trained military contracting officers and noncommissioned officers the four brigades six italians in a hundred and one twenty one teens previously established we will continue to expand the structure of the next few years by adding three new brigades five italians and fifty one teams this structure consists of active duty personnel reservists and national guard members the critically important issue is the size structure and training of the military and civilian contracting workforce the acquisition workforce has declined significantly in the last decade while the workload and the number of dollars associated with that workload have increased significantly furthermore the army has never fought an extended conflict that requires such reliance on contractor support deployed with our forces we are addressing the need to expand train structure in power contracting and non contracting personnel to support the full range of military operations we are developing a detailed contracting campaign plan to implement the necessary changes to contracting incorporating prudence and doctrine organization training leadership and material this will require army o s d the administration and congress working together chairman i would like to very briefly summarize my prepared remarks and i would request that the prepared statement be made part of the record that objection last summer i was asked by the secretary of the army pe to convene an independent commission to assess the army's capability in expeditionary contracting and program management i was honored to chair the commission on army acquisition and program management expeditionary operations  was joined by five very distinguished commissioners people who with unique insight and expertise and government acquisition including program management and contracting specifically the commissioners included general retired david maddox general retired leon solomon rear admiral retired david oliver and two very senior experienced department of defense civilians david berto and george singley our charter was forward looking we were asked to recommend actions to ensure that the operational army and the overall department of defense would be best positioned for future expeditionary operations operations which will most likely be joint multi agency political military events let me simply highlight for you the three most critical items requiring action by the congress first increase general  for the army and for joint organizations in the contracting area back to the levels we suggested that existed in one nine hundred ninety and we believe there are pro create actions in the other services as well second an increase in the number and the training of government contracting personnel military and civilian including those required for the increased role that is necessary in the defense contract management agency and third increased incentives and rewards for the civilian government contracting personnel who volunteered to go into dangerous expeditionary operations these benefits should be similar to the benefits received by their military and by their private sector counterparts i must emphasize that we've found that the d o d has an extremely dedicated corps of contracting people the problem is that they understaffed overworked undertrained under supported and most important under valued the commission greatly appreciate the very strong support we have already received from the congress particularly from this committee as well and the commission is also heartened by the strong support from the departments leadership concurrent with the report's release the commission briefed both the secretary of defense and the secretary of the army each indicated full support of the commission's report and to ensure for a moment both the army and the office of secretary of defense have established task forces for implementation and the office of secretary of defense task force includes the other services and relevant agencies these task forces are coordinating with each other and with the stakeholders including the commission we were briefed by the army in january and expect another briefing in a few weeks i have personally met with the o s d leadership approximately once a month the army in o s d are working together to develop a scorecard to ensure changes have and during impact on expeditionary operations th scorecard will be used to continuously monitor and measure the improvements undertaken in response to the commission's recommendations they have kept the commission appraised of progress and frequently solicit our feedback on implementation activities during these progress reviews the commission has heard of some very noteworthy implementation actions already for example o s d is published an important tool a joint handbook for continued z contracting which didn't exist previously also the army is restructured its contracting organization for the commission recommendations the commissioners were delighted to participate in the february two thousand and eight ceremony to i must point out provisionally stand up the new army contracting command during our interactions with the army and with o s d we've heard that in all cases they are aiming to implement the intent of all the commission's recommendations we look forward to working with them to ensure full and successful implementation and closing as a secretary of defense noted in his response to our report the problems of the commission identified are not just confined to the u s army many have been undone a fight across the dia d and in fact more broadly across the government independently each of these problems is a daunting challenge together they demand a significant cultural structural and policy overhaul of the kind that requires a specific focus by senior leadership it is heartening that our commission's report has received as much positive attention as as from the congress the army and the defense department we believe this issue is critical to america's future security particularly to our war fighters but also to our taxpayers and it deserves priority attention thank you what thank you so much secretary young let me ask you if i may the understanding that the secretary's required report will not be due until the end of may which is in all probability past the markup time here in our committee can you tell us if you believe that any status or relief is required in order to fully implement  the fixes that are done to fight in the gensler commission report and in particular that you believe that such relief is required in the area of assigning sufficient general officers to such contracting would be helpful taken a couple steps first and foremost i would tell you the activities in the department require funding the supplemental will include funds that the contract management agency hard to tional people to meet at least port operations so the supplemental is critical to the department in many ways one small way is the c m a and its ability to add support as a commission called for in theater beyond that the commission as you know made a number of legislative proposals the department is reviewing each of and as indeed drafted potential legislative proposals that are being considered in the federal government for communication to the congress some of those i think are obvious and what you'd expect and that is when we have a protest environment we need expedited procedures to resolve protests so we can move forward we need relief in some areas we believe to assure contracting officers have the authority to buy goods and services in the country where the contingency operations are are occurring in some cases consistent with my comment about the c m a we need expedited hiring authority where we have shortages of skills and particular places and then with regard to civilians who volunteer and go to serve in these positions in theater there are commission recommendations that i think have merit with regard to letting them adjust their life insurance through the federal life insurance program and possibly expanding on what the committees are yeah i think giving us some relief on that is an annual pay cap so they can be paid for the work they do of the contingency establishing an expeditionary contingency contracting command it looks like a xerox of what the committee wrote two thousand and five doesn't it certainly has the same intent congressman what do t there's no substitute for honesty and you can't can't reform a dishonest system with the with with more effective overlays and boxes and a change of command there's no substitute for an honest officer and in some cases we did not have that but one reason that we put this this this section in and voted out of this committee was to ensure also that we respond to combatant commanders for things that they need and it was developed as a result of looking at the war fighting theaters in iraq and afghanistan understanding that in many cases you had two u s marine corps and you had two u s army's you had the operators who were in theater who were out there in the in the in the battle field every day trying to win the war and then you had the you had the storekeepers if you will  the producers of systems who have their own kingdom their own set up their own their own issues somewhat removed from and disconnected from the battlefield commanders and that when we would go over on coattails and we would say what do you need and we'd see basic things that people needed and we get back here and we would review what had been what had been the reaction and the response from the bureaucracy to the war fighters it was in many cases pretty pretty tepid and a slow response so the idea was you we were going to hook things up we were going to have a contingency contracting core which worked quickly and under the direction of the combatant commanders in the theater so  combatant commander in the theater said i need more armor up here to protect my guys from being killed and having their legs blown off in roadside mines he got reaction from the bureaucracy that was in the in the conus and  that's why we put this letter this language in providing for the contingency contracting core so i would hope that as we move this thing forward that we move it forward with an i not just to have a to have a reform of these ethical lapses that we've had and you really can't reform at the collapses with structure you have to reform it with people who will be honest but that we would also look to the the need to get equipment quickly to the battlefield and that's really you know the idea that you had a you would have in some cases you'd have a colonel in the combatant commands beseeching a two or three star general back here in the in conus in the bureaucracy to get a piece of fighters so that's one reason we put this thing in here did you did you look at that dimension the idea of moving equipment quickly into the war fighters and not just the the the ethical problems that we've that we've seen in theater me definitely comment on that because that is a major issue the response time but i would also highlight the fact that when we think about contracting we need to think much more than just the person who writes the contract this is the requirements process and of the general says i want this as he defined it adequately in order to be able to buy it it also involves the program management after the contract is signed the management of it was very weak over there and that was part of the problem i think that caused some of the fraud and abuse because weren't monitoring the contract after they were awarded but i strongly agree with you about the importance of the military leadership in this environment expeditionary environment where people are literally shooting and that's why we do need these general officers for this expeditionary operation who have the experience and who can be listened to by the commanders combat commanders who aren't appreciating fully the value of the fact that more than half of their force are actually contractors and these people need to be a part of the culture in effect recognize as they go through their leadership training that they're going to be facing this in the future this is the typical environment we're going to have in the future and people need to be trained for that and you need military leadership over there to do it but you also need it as part of the overall institutional army and that's the reason we argued so strongly for the general officers and for the joint operations as you pointed out properly this is going to be a joint activity and it's that the command of this needs to be a joint command the other services are going to have to step up to it the defense contract management agency also used to have in one nine hundred ninety four general officers they have none now either the army had five general officers in one thousand nine hundred they have zero now with contracting background this is what we want to fill gap back in the number of contracts the number of actions certainly in an expeditionary operation the difficulty as you point out the x the need for expeditious treatment and the fact that it's an environment in which they need rapid response and they're being shot at that requires you to have people who are trained and experienced not only in writing contracts but in managing those contracts you know let me ask this question when you have a war fighting environment allies you have in iraq and afghanistan do you feel that there is a place for for the combatant commander to be able to command the the delivery of a system into the theater rather than ask for it in fact to command the development of a system one of the problems we have now is is the lack of clarity in the chain of command for contractors do they report back through rock island or they report through someone out in the field who can actually say i need that now now they can say i need it now i'd violate the law it has to be within the laws but they need fast response and they need people who are skilled and experienced in getting this and most of the time by the way this is services not even equipment so that how about if you have a difference but if you have a difference in judgment let's say you have a combatant commander let's say your general petraeus in  theater would say i need a certain type of jammer immediately and i've looked at him let's say i've been let's say he says i've looked at this thing that the brits have or that they israelis have or or something that's been developed by this company and i  have looked at and i've looked at his performance that's what i need i want to should he be able to command the production of that that system and to his command or should he simply be able to make a request that will be then evaluated in ruled on by a requirements council in conus in the bureaucracy what do you think i think first of all he needs to do this through his organization there is a legal people who are chartered to sign the contracts but i personally believe that he should have the ability for those fast responses in an environment of war time to be able to not have to go back into the chain of command not have to go through the regular requirements process or the budget process or the congressional approval process he needs to be able to get that fast response that is the reason that most of the federal acquisition regulations have little aster this says in war time you can take some exceptions that's what john young just pointed out they now  that points out the trained people well we've got a manual that we gave you guys it's one page and it's a law and the law says this and we wrote this thing sure we'll years ago to get that we get the first portable jammer that we' ever had in the theater one page that says sec def can say if he can certify that he's taking casualties on the battlefield and he needs a certain piece of equipment that will lay those casualties he can order the production of that system and waive every acquisition regulation on the book in doing it and he signs his name at the bottom of the page he's only done that twice he did that with our jammer that this committee mandated and we did that because there was no portable to the field in seventy days but d o d s never used that particular provision sense but my question is a is a threshold important question for us to decide should a combatant commander who is fighting the war be able to command the production system to give him something or should he simply be in a position to request it and have his request ruled on by the bureaucracy in the states and that's a threshold question we're going to have to decide where we're trusting these guys with the lives of our of our troops are making momentous decisions and i think that was manifest in the last couple of days of general petraeus his testimony should a general petraeus be able to command the production of an article and they have this system back here serve that production command or should they be autonomous in their own right and be able to rule on whether or not the general petraeus request is a valid one a reasonable one and give what they think the requirements bodies here feel should be produced out now what do you come down on that on that basis i think there should be stand by legislation for the next expeditionary operation as well as the current one that allows them to do that as you suggested may even be a foreign product that they have to buy they could go through some of the other provisions i think that they need to have the ability to get what they need when they need it as long as it's within the law and so therefore are there any laws that prohibit them from doing it those have to be in standby provision waived ok but you think the combatant commander should be able to command the production of an item ok thank you thank accusation workforce is not adequately staffed trained structured or empowered to meet the needs of the twenty first century war fighters based on the fact that only fifty six percent of the military officers and fifty percent of the civilian in the contracting career field being certified for their current the safe just like the one we have done in the past year see that we overwhelm the system i can remember when i first came back in the eighty's and ninety's you know when i came to congress it appears that every military facility and even the police had a yard sale you know a seven to six come in and look what we've got inside the contract that out but nothing was being done on the to where there is no accountability and all you have to do is go back and look at what's happening now but i appreciate what you all are doing this is a good beginning but i think that the systems that plan to provide short term oversight and protection for the taxpayers i think this is very serious but i'm glad that something is being done now congressman we have been very active in increasing our training and preparation of our acquisition work force not just contracting but but across the board lieutenant thompson who is the military deputy to the army acquisition executive is in charge of overseeing the acquisition quarter making sure they're training your point on their certification it's been something that he's been focused on tremendously he has issued guidance out to all the commanders to ensure that we're getting our acquisition work force properly trained and specifically for the jobs that they are that they are in  plan that we have put together to put together this army contracting command really is a three year plan that's going to require us to hire some additional people and bring on new military members it's a very aggressive plan we've got training plans put in place to get them trained as quickly as we can but to be honest with you part of that is we have to have the experience to send people to classrooms what we've to get them into the workforce where they're actually doing to day to day contracting to get prepared for for for soldiers which could be accomplished by department of army civilians what should be done by by contractors so your points are exactly is a good one the army is taking a large look at that as well and i know that the day we're focusing on ice  on a small area but you know what really concerns me is that when you have one hundred forty thousand troops fighting a war but you have two hundred thousand contractors i think that we need to do something to correct this  i know that we paying out a lot of money and maybe at the time it needs to be done i'm not pointing fingers at anybody but i just can't imagine you know having two hundred thousand contractors out there and one hundred thirty forty thousand but that's a subject for the another day i just want to thank you for being with us today and i appreciate your your help and i you back my time thank you thank you mr bartlett thank you very much there too general contracting modes and i'm going to grossly over simplify them for this discussion that can be used in contracting and i have two questions relative to that which one of these do we use and where and have we done definitive stud determine the efficacy of these two different modes of contracting one is to determine what you need the performance characteristics the platform you need and then to design something which will provide you that performance and to let the contract and then to assign a number of people to watch every detail of the manufacturing process to make sure that they're doing it right of the other motive contracting is to determine what you would like your the israelis can buy a fighter plane much cheaper than we buy the fighter plane because we buy the fighter plane after the been produced on an assembly line where we have a lot of people looking over the shoulders of those making it that slows down  process and we pay twice for that we pay the people looking over the shoulder and we pay the increased time it takes to build the plane because they're looking over the shoulder and the israelis simply buy the plane if it flies now which of those contracting modes that we use and where and have we done definitive studies to determine which of these modes is a more efficacious i guess that's my question i'm not sure either are black and white i think people would characterize some of the comments you made about the first mode to some of the older practices there was a time as secretary gates pointed out when we had twenty four thousand people in the defense contract management agency i don't know even then but maybe then certainly then we had more people to go and monitor the production process and monitor contracts today they're at nine thousand and we're pulling people out of any of those monitoring jobs where possible to send them to iraq to work on contingency contracting oversight so i can tell you that we are in that latter model we do try to do adequate oversight and i would tell you many of the recent reports from g a o other people characterize our oversight is deficient at this point in time but we are doing what we think is responsible in what the congress disastrous do in monitoring the performance of contractors and asking them to meet specifications sometimes the size of our bureaucracy reminds me of a complaint that our founding fathers had against king george i have no idea what he did their complaint was that he has established a multitude of new offices and sent swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance and i thought that was a great definition of our regulatory agencies and reasonably described the over assignment of people to monitor what's going on have we done definitive studies to determine which of these modes and which of these is the more efficacious philosophy and i we have i don't there probably are definitive studies i mean things like performance based logistics and performance based contracting tend to resemble this latter model where we set a san people to deliver to that but i could cite for you examples where we've done that and we now have issues where the congress has sided and it's been reported it's been investigated where people didn't perform to those specifications i don't think the government's repaired do except you know limited to no oversight over the process the real question i think you're right lee asking is what's the right balance of oversight to get efficiency how do we get there is it a trial and error or is there a program procedure for getting there i think we are maturing and have a ways to go in looking through a lot of efforts of our training processes and decide essentially what's the right size of a program office one of the minimum functions they need what skills do those people have to have we're working very hard on defense terminating the competency require an acquisition workforce and i think that takes us several steps towards s for a shop right so that most of the people we're talking about are formally call the contracting office technical representatives but i need to be sure if we're talking about the same thing your reports later you use the word understaffed several times you talk about the need for additional people are you and mr hunter in conflict on this point is he saying we don't need more you're saying we do need more i think we're probably using a different definition in the sense that the person who writes the contract is just one piece of a very extended process that's ok with contracting i would argue that that the program management people for example are not really shoppers they are in a sense an oversight function but a management function really i would argue that the people who end up testing the equipment they shoppers you know that there's and the people most important and this is what we were talking about earlier the people who write the requirements the combatant commanders they are very much involved in the acquisition process and i wouldn't call them shoppers they were people with the need so i think there's a different definition of the total scope for example the defense contract management agency people that that john young just talked about those people are the ones who monitor the program after the contracts are written they try to check the performance now they do some of that in the factory but the the problem in iraq and afghanistan has been buying services not buying products and they need somebody who can monitor those contracts afterwards in fact one of the problems we found in iraq and kuwait was that there were no people there to close out contracts that's a perfect invitation to fraud and abuse if you can't conjure a cause out so that there needed to be some people doing that there were no people there who were doing pricing of contractors that is going to cost  ok it's going to cost x we need some government people can say no that's x isn't what it should be edgy x minus y so we there's a whole spectrum here associated with the overall contracting process that i think we feel the were clearly inadequate numbers but much more important was the training and terms of expeditionary operations what you can do and can't do in an environment of an expeditionary operation as congressman hunter pointed out the combat commander needs to be able to say i need this and i want to know how to expedite that process i don't want to hold six months of writing the request i don't want to hold six months for the competition let me ask you in your in your in your study  you've talked about staffing the training the needs in an expeditionary situation did you run into any situations or did you have the was your that your study compass found were an inadequate number of the oversight program management people and inadequately trained they would walk up and say you know you're now a contract monitor and they say well what's that and that's  not proper training for those jobs but there weren't enough people doing that so they had to have somebody who was going to do it mr parsons maybe or that person i want you to pretend that i'm a builder and i'm overseas right now in kuwait or say in iraq and we have an incident in which a mess hall at a water system is destroyed and we need to get it back up right away and you want to use and i as possible they can either use an existing contract to place an order against if there's not a contract they can issue a letter contract they have expedited procedures to do that especially in contingency environment today so as a builder what do i get what will i get for this person what do you get for the purchase what will i get from this person you're going to give me something i assume you going to give me something within twelve hours of the messala going down to the mess hall put back up what will what will i get the get me going faster i guess i'm not really following the well you're not going to have time i assume that by the nature of these you're not going to time to lay out a fifty page contract describing this with specs and everything what am i going to get to get me going i don't know you're going to give me some kind of letter that's the nature of underfed high's contract actually this is not what are you going to give me sir i would say that the situation you're describing today we have existing contracts for these dining hall so it's natural just given your direction to the contractor to come in fact the repairs are p gentlemen thank you for being here today and sector young i've got i'm not going to ask you write a letter to you regarding the small arms program with the united states army and the future of the program and also in four carbine what the future looks like for that weapon so i'll put that in writing to you and your staff if you don't mind instead of asking those questions i want to go to the point that some whatever they were showing me the new sports bar at the camp and june and we were about five o'clock and and we were chatting at one of the stand up bars and he had been to iraq twice and he said to me  said well we ever know how much money halliburton is made off this war and that was three and a half years ago and i still remember it like i see him today as i'm looking at you that goes to this point i think what you gentleman are bringing to the congress today and my many friends here on this diocese who have been here longer than i in leadership this to me is absolutely critical not only to the war but to the taxpayer that you will never be perfect in contract and that will happen or an oversight but the fact is that we do a better job then that enhances the war fi certain type of steel from a foreign country that's not your fault but the fact is as we discussed how we're going to make contracts and more efficient and this country becomes more and more dependent on foreign governments to make a quick mut possibly one day to to make weapons i don't know maybe they doing that now but this is in a related to what you're recommending did is there a concern from people at your level and maybe you can do nothing about the economy of this country and i know you can't but the point is as we continue to become more and more of a service service nation and the fact that certain type of steel has to be ball from foreign countries to help complete the m route vehicle is of great concern to me as a as a  citizen does this indirectly is that an issue that will be before the new united states army department defense and indirectly it will relate to the contractors if they haven't to negotiate or someone above women negotiated to buy products from foreign countries but m r f is a pretty special case but it is a very good illustration of that in that we now have a fairly complex body of legislation so some of the people don't get to manage programs right now they have to find their way through all the rules regulations and statutory limitations on trying to buy products and amoret ran in it exactly that luckily within maze there was a waiver that let us buy some foreign steel as you know and rap has put a steel demand capacity demand on this nation that unprecedented and it's going to go away in about six more months so then you end up with another question that is do we maintain that level of capacity and potentially not use it and what will the taxpayer pay for that that's another hard question or an alternative another question that i feel enormous pressure from the congress and my own enterprise is to control the cost of weapons systems there's no question that in many places there is a premium for doing business where the business volume is small and companies don't want to go in that business space so we try very hard to use u s companies in some places though they're a commodity products and our weapons systems that u s suppliers don't want to be in that business so i can either pay them a lot to be in that business increase the cost of weapons and then i have a lot of questions about the cost of weapons or i rely on worldwide availability of some commodity so you've asked a very good question with a lot of different dimensions to it the next piece of the answer is yes as d d r any i tried to understand and update our critical technologies list so we at least understood what technologies were critical to this nation and to our weapons systems and we could make sure we had access if not us capability in those critical technology areas and i think we require continued big vigilance in that space you for being here i wonder if you could expand somewhat on the value culture because basically in your remarks you say you know none of this is going to work if we don't address that systemically and as i read it quickly  really you're referring to at least five billets i think within the depends management in agency but i can you give me a more of a sense of that because when i'm trying to understand what are the obstacles to doing that i mean why if we if we grab hold of that what else do you have to clear away in order to have that kind of a culture change is that just having the billets there how does that work and if i might just follow up is that a totally different question when i was in iraq i happened to sit with a colonel who was working on a water project in the green zone and he was furious about the way the contracts had been led and the lack of use of local contractors the dollars that had been wasted in literally thrown away in the green zone over that project how does this solve what his problem there i mean does is it related and how do we get it that ultimately written volves smart people who are buyers were managing their contracts and so forth but it clearly does come down to the people and their stature and their value and that's where the culture part comes in if the culture says that everyone in uniform must be somebody who is a time commander a fighter pilot or ship driver rather than some people it's senior positions in the military also taking care of things like contracting then you have a real problem because it's not respected and it's not listened to and when you get into an environment in which you really need something badly the people aren't there to do that job so these are people who are senior people in military that's the general officers  it's also some of the noncommissioned people who are trained in this field and it's all the way up it's a career path question in terms of culture if you know general officers why is a major would you want to go into that career you want to have a place you can get promoted to so there's a culture that holds you back in the civilian side these are all volunteers and if you don't get any benefits or rewards for going overseas and getting shot at why would you want to do that when you can stay home with their family and so that's  challenge is that i mean is there is there a different financial set incentive that you're that you're talking about is it that people clearly it hasn't been valued so that there's been no reason for people to do that  but on the other hand is there something else something more insidious or that's at play that makes it difficult for people even to want to make that decision if the career path was the the sense of the civilians i think it does require some additional financial incentives because they see that their military counterparts and their contractor counterparts are getting benefits and they're not in addition at home their current boss says well we need you here you can't go unless there's enough people to be able to fill those gaps you'll have no one back home doing the contracting work that should be done so there again needs to be a look at the total needs between expedition and at home i think in general the the recognition of the problem which is now what we have because of all the fraud and the things now should get people's attention to the cultural change fortunately secretary gerund has really placed a lot of emphasis on this now and i think that secretary gates is placing ephesus on it and that's necessary but not sufficient the senior people in uniform also have to place emphasis on it has to be part of their training part of their cultural indoctrination and that includes the recognition the importance of the civilians who are taking part in this activity at the army but we're assuming this is look at this issue or is it something that you think can actually take hold because one service perhaps is going to show the best practices and then the rest will follow suit or everyone's we think it follows for the other services as well we've heard that there are similar problems but we didn't investigate those and but clearly the activities in the future will be joint not only joint between various parts of the d o d but joint with the state department which has to be worked out as well as someone who has been in the building several years i want to amplify what jack said you have to have seen your flag officer positions to which people can aspire to and be promoted to and pursue those as career paths if you want to get people right now the army doesn't have contracting p junior levels because there's no flag officer level to aspire to in the army the congress has laws about promotion rates in the acquisition workforce and these you know you talk about the number of flag officers but these issues are really one  the time and incrementally i frequently seen us not promote one less acquisition person one more line officer and then i find myself being asked by the state chiefs of the services to take a line officers to run acquisition programs in areas where they don't have the skills to it and furthermore those choices to take away those contracting billets and apply them into line officer functions creates more pressure not to promote promote contracting officers because now the demand is promote another line officer to fill that job which is a job i just created by stealing the contracting billing we have to restore those billets in the service chiefs are going to have to acknowledge the need for these contracting skills acknowledging the need for these contracting billets and acknowledge a need to promote people in these a quick question i mean somebody thinks that what the public would get from some of this is that somewhere along the line people are making a whole lot more money within their contracts because somehow there's not that oversight that's been built into what i would think would be the officer corps that that an unfair i mean i personally don't think that's the issue i think it's the war fighters not getting what he needs that's what's really critical there's the that's the perspective here the contractors are trying to do their job and the contractors and the government needs to supervise that but the real problem is really really believe the warfighter has to be satisfied in their needs thank you mr young let me ask you are you recommending the flag officer billets in addition to what we have i'm not prepared to and i don't think i have the authority to do that so i don't know asking you a personal professional level you have the authority to answer my question there's no question we need to restore the joint billets for two years now we've needed a military officer to be the head of the defense contract management agency and have been able to get a qualified nominee the services have to have promotion change and then they have to have some robustness in that so that i can feel joint flag officer bill as i believe some of the billets that have been taken out of these positions need to assessment of what we've been talking about this morning if you mean making a suggestion which you have just a little closer to the microphone all right thank you thank you it just seems to me that that could be a constitutional issue i don't know if anybody's prepared to answer that when when i answered congressman hunter about the authority of the combatant commander to make a decision that he needed something it was certainly intended to be within the the dollars available and secretary young pointed out unless for example if it was in the supplemental of that that those dollars were needed then as long as the dollars were available then you could go get something that the combatant commander badly needs on the other hand he needs to be able to say i need this rather than i'd like to have it and i wish i had the money the money has to be there that's clearly the you don't want to change that responsibility but within the dollars available then the combatant commanders need to be able to yet what they need when they need it and they can do that through the acquisition capability of their organization they don't do it themselves they don't go out and buy something on the show on the shelf like we might do at the supermarket they say you know i need a tent city or i need meals or whatever and then they go through their acquisition of hardy's and with the dollars available that was about not advocating a change in the law no no no i just i would make clear though that being able to do things is extremely contingent on the availability of funds to do it and in fact in some places the congress has helped we could not have built and wraps for example without extraordinary actions on the part of the congress another piece of this though is when we build our budget it is a cumbersome process and then we come and defend it before the congress and so a lot of people do a lot of good work to build a budget that delivers a broad spectrum of capability for the nation through the defense department those people rightly hold those dollars because it is their chance to deliver a hobby or their chance to deliver ship and when new requirements emerge it is not as simple as i tell people every dollar in the defense department comes to a zip code get going back in getting that mail getting that dollar back to go do something that's very urgent the field is tougher than it sounds and that's why it's critical where the congress provides us some flexibility in funding that lets us responding combatant commander demands to be able to have those funds to do that and certainly point out to answer your point that the congress officially authorized during the balkans environment that there be a standby fund to be able to address exactly your problem and they've also author of the congress is also money so there are there are some financial issues that in my state and once we are able to politically be more expedient in terms of the money we still need the transformation of the army's culture to its contracting to change and we need a major systematic change in the way that the army organize trains and equips for contracting how will the army ensure that change is currently being considered achieved this sort of comprehensive cultural shift rather than just resulting in a revision  who want to come into contracting in the military and have the ability to to sell to accelerate and get promoted as we have now the belt this structure that will allow us to bring officers and then c e o s in about a five or six year point and give them a expeditionary contracting command so part of changing the culture and getting people who want to be professionals in the contracting career field is to provide that type of type of a career path the other thing that we are doing to get another point of the cancer commission report is we need to make sure that the operational understand army understands contracting and so we have expanded now the training that were given to non acquisition type people so all new student two star general officers now have a block of instruction on contracting  contractor management were starting to do that at the senior service colleges the intermediate level education as well so those are some of the things that we're doing in the army to try to change the culture so that people recognize the importance of contracting in contractor management and also have a desire to be in this career field i would just add i think your point's exactly right and it will require the leadership level they can be work from other levels and you do have to have a promotion path that brings people through that into that career field and trains them but you know for example to the chairman's question additional flag billets actually rewards the bad behavior where the army took five contracting visions and put them somewhere else in the army and over time that erosion can not happen again you can't if you if the congress decides to give them five additional flags the leadership from here for news no question the current leadership with secretary guerin has this view but the ensuing leadership has to keep those flag positions in place and not  go to a flavor of the day command over on the line side and steal those flag officers  chairman thank you and i want to thank the witness up out of town this hearing particularly interesting and i'm encouraged by the testimony of each one of you to gansler it sounds like the report that you were billion dollars a month obviously there are a lot of contracts there are there are a lot of things that have to be done pretty quickly i'm not sure that i fully agree with the ranking member hunter in regard to a combatant commander being able to snap their fingers too quickly and getting something done that i think we have the program for small of things and i think that works pretty well but if you've got a major acquisition certainly it needs to be  secretary young i have been pleased the chairman appointed me as a ranking member on my roles and missions ad hoc committee with completed our report it was a six month study chaired by jim cooper my colleague in the us to enter into a more memorandum of understanding on contracting in iraq and afghanistan no later than july one two thousand and eight when the memorandum will clarify the roles and missions of the respective agencies in managing and oversee be brief and maybe i could reserve one second to comment on your other point that is but the dremel you my understanding is in draft and being coordinated i believe it does become as or more important in the last months as we recognize the total importance of one agency's understanding what other agencies are doing in terms of contractors and with contractors be personal security or contractors performing work functions and then frankly the theater continues to reemphasize all the way up to the combatant commanders the need for inner agency cooperation to succeed in these phases of war activities where there's a combination of trying to restore peace and opportunity in the nation and still about the other one i agree with you very much and i didn't speak earlier the combatant commander i couldn't it is vitally important for them to say what they need and sometimes point but they do not have enough time to look at all the ways to solve their problems if anything's come up short we do need the acquisition team to act with urgency when they bring that to our attention but we do have an operational need statement processes that have done a lot of things for combatant commanders fairly quickly and you never know whether one thing they see could be done much better i do know if we buy something they want and it fails the acquisition teams can take the black eye for it so i want to have one chance to make sure we get meet their requirements and meet their needs not necessarily with the hardware but if the hardware is right we'll go buy it right indeed and there's a fine line there of course as we all understand mr chairman thank you and thank you mr ellsworth mindy and thank you mr chairman thank you jennifer being here i appreciate what you're doing i think a lot of people and sometimes ourselves don't understand the daunting task that you have in trying to quip our war fighters with everything like we talked about food and weapons equipment toilet paper to face the entire gamut of everything they need to do their job and we appreciate that but i have to associate my comments with mr jones earlier about that we also everyone on this committee republicans and democrats want to do everything we can for the war fire that we have to also have that responsibility those those soldiers families are home paying taxes and want us to watch those  dollars also you know mr ganns i call attention to one of things you said or in your earlier statement about that we have to give them incentives and reward and i think on page three of your document talks about the problem is  understaffed overworked undertrained under supported and most importantly undervalued and i'd like to explore that a little more further about that are we not enabling some of these contractors who do go south  are we making excuses for them the carrot their salary the contract and the profit they build into their contract themselves i know that some of the contracts i remember when i was in government before i took this job that i lost two deputy sheriffs to come in over one hundred twenty five can remember the rocher one hundred twenty five thousand dollars a year tax free and they quit my department and went over and served in a security sense and so is that not the the incentive and reward and going back to my former life i had i always thought my deputies deserved more money and deserved a bigger salary but county government didn't let me give them that and they knew that when they signed that contract coming in  they knew they were going to make this much and here was their insurance package and here was their benefit package and here was their pension and their dollars i knew they deserve more money but when they when they did mess up and steal or they took something they didn't deserve then they got fired and they got punished and and some went to jail and so my question would be are we are we making excuses and i i think this committee and this congress should give you everything you need to do your job but i don't also want to make excuses for those that head south and out of greed steal from this government and i guess my ultimate question is how many are in jail how many how many if we prosecuted arrested and i'm not talking about the country club gian talking about the grey bar motel and we've back to you hauled up to their up their houses with their wife and kids there and took this stuff the proceeds like we did from drug dealers and take their drug proceeds how many how many times we put their paint pictures in the paper in their hometown newspaper and say here's the guy that stole jared tax dollars and i just i appreciate what you do and i don't know if there's an answer to this question but i don't want to navel these folks and save our fault we're all overworked and i had a lot of people around i didn't mean they stole and they had a right it's like that old thing well to big company it won't miss it and i think this is a huge task but we've got to keep in mind we've just got to give you the tools to do what's right and to catch these bad actors when they when they mess up and then given that punishment given the stick not the character so if you want to respond that's fine i would very much like there is spawn because i do separate the illegal actions from the what we requested for the volunteer government workers i think the illegal actions is absolutely no basis for anything except putting him in jail i mean that's certainly the case in the civil world it's a case here as well as what we have jails and we certainly want to make sure that there are no  you know we have over ninety cases now being looked at and trying to put them in jail if they deserve to go to jail the issue we're really talking about however are the civilian government employees who when they signed up they signed up to work in dayton ohio doing contracting and now they're being asked to go over in a war zone get shot at not have their insurance covered not giving many major long term health benefits not given tax waivers excedrin and being told you know go over and those people are the ones that we feel deserve something for volunteering to go to something they hadn't signed up for originally and we think that those provisions need to be considered it's almost an ethical that those people aren't being rewarded for what they're doing which is a volunteer to go into a war zone for the country's good and for the taxpayers good if they're overseeing a contract that's for the taxpayers good and the fact that you have people overseeing it was probably going to cut back on the amount of illegal actions i couldn't agree more i appreciate that clarification as chairman i have no further questions thank you thank you mr spread like very much for your contribution to your effort this has been done several times before the sure you found along the path you traveled many of instances where the commission's dr drew similar change in some on the other it's the conclusion that the easiest way to get good talent avoid was to go to the uniform military service that while there was good and and commendable talent in the civilian you're more apt to find it in the military than then in the near term to attract military officers into these procurement acquisition and program management posts then go out and look for civilian talent but that requires creating a procurement corps as it were military that is a credible attractive appealing career path for military officers and would you agree we simply don't have it today in any of the services the army the other services yes in fact that's particularly the point of the general officer positions that if you're going to come in as a major you're going to come in as a captain you're going to i'm in a trying to decide on what my career is going to be in the army and and there's no potential to become a general if you're not going to stick in that if you're a top person so we have to create an incentive i would argue it's not an either or though between military and civilian there are but civilian roles in this case and there are military roles but we need at the leadership particularly in the expeditionary environment senior military people well it's really our parents when i was in the service and worked in the pentagon so many years ago who was created by mcnamara through robert anthony was professor of finance to harvard business school and he brought down from harvard during vietnam young men who needed the direct commission and o didn't retain them nevertheless they made a huge contribution while they were there and i think i thought then really the services in d o d together don't make a good case for the attractiveness of these if they gave these young bushy tailed management ambitious types very bright the opportunity some would stay longer than two to three years some might even say twenty years if rising to the top meant something other than being just a senior bureaucratic they really had authority there if there and we simply have not been able to take an institutionalized for some reason is it because of the forces against that at the pentagon or is it just difficult to do  do you have an explanation for that that was the cultural change we talked about earlier where the war fighters need to recognize the value of these people who are supporting them and their career orders from below and shuffle papers they want to make tough management decisions and they have a decision respect and they're they have to be respected as individuals and that does require i think some senior positions particularly in the military side every from time to time we come to this task and say this needs addressing this needs serious attention and then we do something we pass a bill and we don't follow the paddock really to see that is being carried out in the to some extent all we can do is job on the defense department anyway if aaron inclining or structurally able to make the change and we've kind of left to our own frustrations here but what did you find about different do you think that's an essential part of the solution here you referred back to the packard commission that we actually looked at the china like experiment at that time and recommended it to the congress authorized me when i was undersecretary to run an experiment with exactly with ninety thousand people you approved only thirty thousand signed up the unions fought it fiercely my last year in office i was sued for some people who didn't get their their pay for living another year instead of contributing and  may want to comment on the current personnel system it's trying to do that again and i think it should be encouraged i i would agree it's critical and we've tried very hard through and been given the tools of the national security personnel system to discriminate in terms of performance and recognise it with financial rewards as opposed to you know minor variations in pay that dollar as well discriminate reward peoples of performance is a very important tool for us going forward making connect that pay i think particularly with the government pension being an important part of the incentive for people to work in the federal government and they need to be more portability it seems to me the pension for a coach you where you can attract young people they may give you five years they may give you ten years but really ten good years they will give you but they're not going to do that unless they've got something to show for that in the most let's leave something like depiction that can pick it up and take it with them roll it over something and it's something along those the packard commission the trend in certainly in what i've experienced in the building is we're we're on the edge of eroding some of the capability of our acquisition workforce which the congress has focused a lot of attention in those people especially is the comments of risen of late about the cost growth and programs and my movement of requirements some of that you know it's not perfect but some of that's tied to the fact that i need an acquisition program manager to do what you said make tough decisions take tough stands to defend the taxpayers dollars he's often doing that with the requirements officer who's a very capable line officer has a very good promotion potential to flag and worried about if i say no to this requirement because i think it's a little excessive and it's definitely going to cost us a lot more tax money and it's going to break my budget is that going to hurt me in that flag board when it comes up we have to continue to take care of those people and actually give them more authority to be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars meet the war fires requirements but as you know the system has come to set those requirements bars excessively high and chase dollars and sometimes we need to moderate that and that's another hearing discussion people for their performance rather than from lived another year and really you know what rather than just simply living another year and having a temperature of ninety eight point six i mean the whole idea was you will rate people on their current pay and their performance and if their current pay is low relative to what they should be getting then you give them a significant impact if their pay is high and they're not performing you don't give them a significant impact and so it's formants which is as john said basically what the drawing to now implement with the personnel system as chairman i believe it also had another dimension is one of hiring it was in a demo program that included the dimension two of us being able to hire technical people who can command greater salaries out in industry can we have different hiring process is in pay process that will let us hire the best engineering talent which isn't always the case today in the government thank you  welcome comments from my colleagues from my part i would tell you i think the act is been very effective the training that we're putting in place has has affectively train people we need to constantly improve that training one of our bigger issues and i regret that congressman hunter is not here the d o d budgets up thirty four percent since two thousand and one r and d budget sub seventy percent and we've spent over six hundred billion dollars of supplemental money without adding much in the way of workforce i think that congress as a legitimate expectation that those monies will be carefully manage and overseen not wastefully but appropriately and i'm going to have to add some people to the workforce in the right skill areas in fact the demands are greater than we see here where industry increasingly offers us unrealistic programs then we have protests as you're well aware of that puts greater burdens on the government team and then now we need things to be in iraq rable because that brings great value to the joint war fighter some of that integration has to curve on the government side to at least define it because i can't tell to come will you make the formal recommendations along those lines yes or depreciate very