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42–253 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 110–366

‘‘URGENT REFORM REQUIRED: ARMY EXPEDITIONARY CONTRACTING,’’ THE REPORT OF

THE COMMISSION ON ARMY ACQUISITION AND

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT IN EXPEDITIONARY

OPERATIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT 

SUPPORT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 6, 2007

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services

(

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia, 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Staff Director 

MICHAEL V. KOSTIW, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES 

‘‘URGENT REFORM REQUIRED: ARMY EXPEDITIONARY CONTRACTING,’’ THE REPORT

OF THE COMMISSION ON ARMY ACQUISITION AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENT IN EXPEDITIONARY OPERATIONS

DECEMBER 6, 2007

Page

Gansler, Hon. Jacques S., Chairman, Commission on Army Acquisition and 

Program Management in Expeditionary Operations ........................................ 4

Bolton, Hon. Claude M., Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, 

Logistics, and Technology; Accompanied by LTG Ross N. Thompson III, 

USA, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology; and Kathryn A. Condon, Executive Deputy 

to the Commanding General, Army Materiel Command .................................. 14

(III) 

(1)

‘‘URGENT REFORM REQUIRED: ARMY EXPEDITIONARY CONTRACTING,’’ THE REPORT OF 

THE COMMISSION ON ARMY ACQUISITION 

AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENT IN EXPEDITIONARY OPERATIONS 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m. in room 

SR–222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Daniel K. Akaka 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators Akaka, Levin, McCaskill, 

Inhofe, and Thune. 

Majority staff members present: Daniel J. Cox, Jr., professional 

staff member; Gerald J. Leeling, counsel; Peter K. Levine, general 

counsel; Michael J. McCord, professional staff member; and William K. Sutey, professional staff member. 

Minority staff members present: Pablo E. Carrillo, minority investigative counsel; David G. Collins, research assistant; Gregory 

T. Kiley, professional staff member; Derek J. Maurer, minority 

counsel; Lucian L. Niemeyer, professional staff member; and Diana 

G. Tabler, professional staff member. 

Staff assistants present: Kevin A. Cronin, Ali Z. Pasha, and Benjamin L. Rubin. 

Committee members’ assistants present: Jay Maroney, assistant 

to Senator Kennedy; Jon Davey, assistant to Senator Bayh; Stephen C. Hedger, assistant to Senator McCaskill; Sandra Luff, assistant to Senator Warner; Anthony J. Lazarski, assistant to Senator Inhofe; and Stuart C. Mallory, assistant to Senator Thune. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DANIEL K. AKAKA, 

CHAIRMAN 

Senator AKAKA. The hearing of the Readiness and Management 

Support Subcommittee will come to order. 

The Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee meets 

today to hear testimony about the report of the Gansler Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations. 

But, before we begin, I would like to note that today’s hearing 

is our first since Senator Thune succeeded Senator Ensign as the 

2

ranking member of this subcommittee. Whether as chairman and 

as ranking member, Senator Ensign always took a bipartisan approach that put the interests of our men and our women in uniform 

first. I also want to say that, when Senator Inhofe was chairman, 

we also shared that, as well. Now, I’m confident that Senator 

Thune will do the same. 

So, Senator Thune, I want to personally welcome you as our new 

ranking member. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. I look forward to working with you, as I did with 

Senator Inhofe and with Senator Ensign, and I really enjoyed 

working with all of them. 

This subcommittee has long been concerned about shortcomings 

in the acquisition and contracting processes of the Defense Department. We have expressed particular concern about an acquisition 

workforce that simply has been stretched too far and too thin to get 

the work done. 

Last January, I opened our first meeting in Congress by noting 

that we have fewer and fewer procurement officials responsible for 

managing more and more contract dollars. In the view of many, 

these trends long ago passed the point where our acquisition force 

lost the capacity needed to perform essential functions. 

Last month, the Gansler Commission weighed in, reporting that 

systemic failures in the Army acquisition system have left the Department vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. According to the 

Gansler Commission, ‘‘The cause is a culture that does not sufficiently value or recognize the importance of contracting, contract 

management, and contractors in expeditionary operations. The 

Army has excellent, dedicated people, but they are understaffed, 

overworked, undertrained, undersupported, and, most important, 

undervalued.’’ 

The question before us is not how we got where we are today, 

but, what are we going to do about it? The Gansler Commission 

has made a series of recommendations for far-reaching changes in 

the Army acquisition system, including significant improvements of 

the size, status, and training of the acquisition workforce. Most 

dramatically, the Commission says that we need 10 new general officers for contracting positions, and 2,000 new contracting personnel, to meet the needs of the Army alone. These recommendations have my full support, but it will not be possible to implement 

without strong support from the Army, the Department of Defense 

(DOD), and Congress. 

Fortunately, the initial reports that we have received about the 

views of the Army and DOD are positive. I hope that we’ll be able 

to get these views on the record in the course of today’s hearing. 

Senator Thune, it’s time for your statement. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN THUNE 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very 

much the opportunity to serve as ranking member on this subcommittee, and I look forward to working with you. You have conducted this subcommittee’s work in an exemplary way, and I have 

great respect for your leadership; and so, I look forward to working 

3

with you and the other members of the subcommittee as we take 

on the important tasks at hand. 

I want to thank you for convening the hearing on this very important matter. I also want to thank Dr. Gansler, of the Commission, and the members of the Commission, for their valuable assistance, and, of course, Secretary Bolton, General Thompson, and Ms. 

Condon for their service. 

With the Commission’s report, we’ve hit a critical milestone in finally getting a handle on the scope of the problem associated with 

expeditionary contracting, but much work has yet to be done to 

analyze the report’s findings and recommendations, and, where 

warranted, see to the recommendations’ implementation. 

Against that backdrop, I would just issue a note of caution. Some 

of the Commission’s recommendations are very ambitious, calling 

for change throughout the Department of the Army, and, in some 

cases, beyond, particularly with regard to those recommendations 

requiring congressional assistance. For those that may have an impact beyond the Army’s contracting corps, I would just ask that we 

measure twice before cutting once. At least some of my questions 

for the witnesses will come from that perspective. 

Mr. Chairman, I cannot help but note an element of irony in 

what we’re discussing today. In the mid to late 1990s, it was Congress that really went after the acquisition corps of the Services. 

Incessant reference to a ‘‘shopper corps’’ supported huge reductions 

into the conference reports during that period. We are now at a 

point where only about 3 percent of the Army’s contracting personnel are Active Duty, where only about half of those working in 

the Army in a contracting career field are certified for their current 

position, and where the Army no longer offers a general officer billet for career contracting professionals. However, about half of the 

total force in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait are contractors. 

Without calling into question the integrity of our Army contracting corps, there is little reason why, despite serving as the executive agent for contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is 

relying largely on the Air Force to provide contracting support to 

all ground forces in theater or that of all the Services far-and-away 

most of the investigations into contract fraud or abuse arise from 

the Army. Indeed, there now appears to be broad consensus that, 

when coupled with our having contracting out acquisition functions 

closely associated with inherently governmental functions, the cuts 

that we saw in the 1990s probably went too far. 

That being said, I’m unsure about the congressional appetite to 

implement some of the Commission’s recommendations; in particular, giving the Army more general officer slots to address the 

problem. I suggest that the support of Army leadership is going to 

be important here. Accordingly, at this hearing I am interested in 

knowing what the Army’s and the Secretary of Defense’s reactions 

are to the Commission’s recommendations, and to what extent each 

are implemented? I’m interested in seeing how that support is 

manifested in the next annual budget request when we review it 

in the readiness posture hearing in the spring. 

There can be no doubt that rebuilding the Army’s contracting 

corps so that it has the required contracting capability is not going 

to happen overnight. I think that, at the end of the day, the report 

4

stands for the broad proposition that all options should be on the 

table, and, with this hearing, we take the first big step to taking 

a good look at many of those options. 

Once again, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting 

the hearing, and I want to thank the witnesses for their time 

today, and I look forward to their testimony. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Thune. 

I’d like to ask Senator Inhofe——

Senator INHOFE. Let me just briefly say why I’m here, Mr. Chairman. 

You’ll remember that, during the time that Senator Thune referred to, in the 1990s—I actually was chairing this subcommittee, 

and you were the ranking member; and you and I agreed, at that 

time, that we were critical of some of the cuts that were taking 

place. So, I won’t be able to stay very long, but I wanted to hear 

the opening statement. I have a regular communication with Secretary Bolton and some of the rest of them here, but I’d like to hear 

about the report so I can get an idea of where we’re going and be 

familiar with that. 

So, I appreciate your including me for this hearing. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe. 

I’d like to say thank you to our witnesses. 

First, let me mention the Honorable Dr. Gansler, who appeared 

before this committee on numerous occasions in his capacity as 

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 

Dr. Gansler, I want to welcome you back, and we thank you and 

your fellow commissioners for the outstanding work that you have 

done on this report. 

Also, I want to welcome the Honorable Claude Bolton, who has 

served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, for the last 6 years. In that capacity, he has 

testified before this committee on numerous occasions also. 

Secretary Bolton, I understand that you will be leaving the Department next month, and we recognize the contribution that you 

have made to the Army over the last 6 years, and we want to 

thank you for your service. 

Also, we have with us Lieutenant General Ross Thompson and 

Ms. Kathryn Condon, and I also want to welcome both of you. 

With that, Dr. Gansler please begin with your statement at this 

time. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JACQUES S. GANSLER, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON ARMY ACQUISITION AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENT IN EXPEDITIONARY OPERATIONS 

Dr. GANSLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your 

introductory remarks, they’re very kind—and Senator Thune, Senator Inhofe—it’s good to see all of you. 

The Secretary of the Army established an independent commission titled the Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations. I would emphasize the ‘‘expeditionary’’ aspect of it. Our objective was to review the lessons 

learned in the recent operations, and also to provide forward-looking recommendations to ensure that future military operations 

5

would achieve far greater effectiveness, efficiency, and, particularly, transparency. 

I was honored to chair the Commission and to be joined by five 

very distinguished commissioners with expertise and insight into 

government acquisition, including program management and contracting. I would like to note, the commissioners included General 

(Retired) David Maddox, who represented the Army’s operational 

community; General (Retired) Leon Salomon, who represented the 

Army’s acquisition community; Rear Admiral (Retired) David Oliver, who provided alternative service representation, but, also, he 

had recent experience in Iraq through his service with the Coalition Provisional Authority; and then, two very senior very experienced DOD civilians David Berteau and George Singley. 

At the Secretary’s direction, we conducted our efforts within a 

very compressed 45-day timeframe that I think is indicative of the 

immediate challenges facing the Army. Our focus was on how to 

prevent any shortcomings in Army acquisition and program management in expeditionary operations for the next time. Our charter 

was forward-looking. We were tasked to ensure that, institutionally, the Army is better positioned for future operations, which will, 

in our opinion, be expeditionary and also joint, and likely to be 

multi-agency, political/military events. 

At the outset, it’s very important to note that other concurrent 

activities were underway, focusing on different aspects of today’s 

challenges. Lieutenant General Ross Thompson and Ms. Kathryn 

Condon are co-chairing the Army’s Contract Task Force that was, 

and still is, looking at the current fraud issues. Separately, the 

DOD Inspector General (IG), Lieutenant General (Retired) Claude 

Kicklighter has been looking at equipment accountability issues. 

Outside of DOD, Ambassador Kennedy of the State Department 

has an effort underway to examine private security contracts; thus, 

current fraud, equipment accountability, and private security contracts were not within the purview of this Commission. 

To address our forward-looking tasking, in September and October the Commission engaged officials within all of the relevant 

communities. We actually had over 122 interviews. The individuals 

we heard from represented a wide range of stakeholders, from senior military leadership to field operators, to audit personnel, to contract support personnel, and so forth. We spoke to people both 

stateside and deployed. I might point out, our discussions with personnel inside the continental United States (CONUS) were important, especially since we defined expeditionary as not only outside 

of CONUS, but also emergency conditions within CONUS, such as 

Hurricane Katrina, given that there are very great similarities in 

terms of the responsiveness of these two situations. We also heard 

from people currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait; 

and, given the compact schedule, the Southwest Asia interviews 

were conducted by video conference. However, we separately interviewed the commander of the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, then the next level of military leadership, and 

then the working level, all in the absence of their superiors so that 

we were able to get an objective, independent assessment. 

Despite this broad spectrum represented by our interviews, we 

received almost universal agreement on what the issues are, what 

6

changes are required, and the absolute need for change. As a result, the Commission crafted a broad-based strategy for addressing 

these shortcomings, which we published in this independent report, 

dated October 31, titled, ‘‘Urgent Reform Required: Army Expeditionary Contracting.’’ 

I would request that the executive summary from that report be 

included in the record of today’s proceedings. 

Senator AKAKA. Without objection, it will be. 

Dr. GANSLER. I appreciate the subcommittee’s invitation to highlight some of the key findings and recommendations from that report. 

Our key findings include the observation that the Army, and far 

more broadly, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, the DOD does 

have a problem, but it’s not a problem with single organizations or 

even a single individual or even a group of individuals. Rather, the 

Army and the DOD are faced with a systemic challenge in executing expeditionary operations, both from an operational and an 

institutional vantage point. 

The so-called ‘‘Operational Army’’ is expeditionary and on a war 

footing, yet it has not fully recognized the impact of the large number of contractors involved in expeditionary operations and on their 

potential impact to mission success. In fact, today, with approximately 160,000 private-sector contractors in the Iraq/Afghanistan/

Kuwait zone, they represent about 50 percent—or half—of the total 

force in that zone. Additionally, critical segments of the ‘‘Institutional Army,’’ which is the one supporting the ‘‘Operational Army,’’ 

have not adapted in order to provide the responsiveness that is required in the acquisition and sustainment operations for expeditionary operations. 

Let me give you four specific examples where we think shortcomings exist: 

First, financial management. On the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, which was the largest one last 

year, there were 141 incremental funding contract modifications. 

That means that the contract had to be modified 141 times in that 

1 year just because the approved money was not being adequately 

released by the OMB, by the OSD comptroller and/or the Army 

comptroller. This is inconsistent with wartime needs. 

We have to be able to provide the money in a timely fashion in 

order to run expedited operations effectively and efficiently. 

Second, in terms of civilian personnel, our government civil servants do not qualify for the favored income tax benefits that their 

military equivalents and the private-sector contractors in the same 

situation receive. When they are deployed in support of an expeditionary obligation, they don’t get those benefits. They do not have 

the benefit of long-term medical coverage for injuries sustained in 

the theater, nor is their life insurance coverage extended for acts 

of war. Yet, they are asked to volunteer to go into the war zone. 

Third, in terms of military personnel, there are no longer any 

Army general officer positions for career contracting professionals. 

In 1990, not that long ago, there were five. So, there is little incentive, if you’re a military personnel, to go into this career field. Yet, 

for expeditionary operations where there’s warfighting going on, we 

7

need contracting people who are in uniform in this critical area. We 

want them to be in the lead in the war zone. 

Fourth, contracting and contract management, itself. The contracting process is very complicated. It involves multiple stakeholders. This is not simply signing a piece of paper to create a contract, nor is it simply shopping, as Senator Thune mentioned. 

The process ranges from defining the requirements all the way 

through the, literally, 70-plus steps of post-award contract management in order to ensure mission accomplishment. When done properly, these important functions ensure efficient use of our tax dollars, and they control waste, fraud, and abuse. But we found that 

these functions were often not even being done; and, when done at 

all, it was referred to as, literally, a ‘‘pickup game.’’ 

Contracting should be a core capability of the Army, but it is currently treated as an operational and institutional side issue. We 

found that the DOD has an extremely dedicated core of contracting 

people. The problem is, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, they are 

understaffed, overworked, undertrained, undersupported, and, I 

would argue, most important, undervalued. 

Let me give you some examples to illustrate the current challenges. Only 3 percent of the Army contracting personnel are Active Duty military, so the rest are government civilians. Many more 

trained and experienced military personnel, officers, and noncommissioned officers are required in an expeditionary environment. 

Next, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 

1996 required the DOD to reduce its acquisition workforce by 25 

percent by the end of fiscal year 2000. After those reductions, the 

Department has not increased the acquisition workforce, even 

though the DOD budget has gone up dramatically since September 

11, 2001. In fact, despite a sevenfold workload increase and the 

greater complexity of contracting in this intense environment, the 

government civilian and military contracting workforce has been 

declining; and, of those remaining, only 56 percent of the military 

officers and 53 percent of the civilians in the contracting career 

field are certified for their current positions. 

Based on the lessons learned, the Commission developed recommendations that addressed the gravity of the situation and the 

urgent need for reform. In short, the Commission identified four 

key elements to future success. 

First, contracting personnel. We must increase the stature, the 

quantity, and the career development of contracting personnel, 

military and civilian, especially for expeditionary operations. 

Second, organization and responsibility. We must restructure the 

Army contracting organization and restore its overall responsibility 

to facilitate high-quality contracting in contract management, in 

both expeditionary and peacetime operations. 

Third, training and tools. We must provide the training and the 

tools for the overall contracting activities that are different in these 

expeditionary operations. 

Last, in the legislative and regulatory and policy area, we must 

obtain legislative, regulatory, and policy assistance to enable contracting effectiveness in expeditionary operations. 

8

Since our report covers the details of the first three areas, I 

thought today I would like to focus on the fourth category and ask 

for congressional assistance with the legislative aspects of the Commission’s recommendations. 

First, we recommend that Congress authorize general officer billets for Army contracting and for joint organization contracting. 

Specifically, this Commission recommended five new Army general 

officers, as well as one senior executive service billet. This would 

essentially reestablish those five positions for the general officers 

in the Army, and we would like those fenced for the Secretary to 

assign them to meet this urgent need, and not have them drawn 

off for other needs; and five additional joint general officer or flag 

billets be established; including a three-star position for the expanded scope of the Defense Contract Management Agency 

(DCMA)—and this expanded scope, which we strongly recommend 

and which we think is important—requires service backfill authorizations for the joint positions. These military officer billets should 

not be created at the expense of existing civilian senior executive 

service contracting authorizations in the Army workforce. These 

have to be maintained, as well. 

In the past decade and a half, we have witnessed the elimination 

of general officers in the contracting field. As I noted, in 1990 there 

were five Army general officers. Some of these started as two-star 

positions; they were then reduced to one-star; and then all five 

were eliminated. In the joint commands, all four contracting flag 

and general officer positions have similarly disappeared. Today, all 

that remains is one temporary position, the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is being filled by an Air 

Force officer. 

The Commission believes this backslide needs to be remedied. 

We must at least get back to where we were in 1990. General officers must lead the Army transformation to make contracting an 

Army core competence. The Army needs general officers who know 

contracting and can serve as functional advocates for expeditionary 

operations and to avoid the problems that are now being experienced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. These general officers, 

who must be permanently assigned to contracting, will initiate and 

sustain improvement to Army acquisition. They will also grow future leaders, and they will support leadership efforts. Our report 

identifies the specific positions that these general officers will fill, 

as well as the organizational changes required to achieve the desired transformation in Army and joint contracting. 

Second, the Commission recommends an increase in Army contracting personnel; in fact, by almost 2,000 people. That includes 

increased Army military by about 400, and civilian government 

people by about 1,000, as well as about 600 billets, military and civilian, for Army support to the DCMA, which is a joint activity not 

under the Army. 

The Army contracting personnel total increase is not that significant relative to the total people currently in the Army contracting 

career field, even including the DCMA fill-in. In 1990, the Army 

had approximately 10,000 people in contracting. This has been reduced to approximately 5,500, where it has largely remained, while 

the dollar value, as I noted earlier, of Army contracts has inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
9

creased, in fact, 331 percent, and the number of Army contract actions increased 654 percent between 1992 and 2006. 

The Army is the DOD executive agent for contracting in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, but it is unable to fill military or civilian contracting 

billets in either quantity or quality—in qualifications. There are 

simply far too few Army contracting personnel in the theater to 

meet the needs. The people who are there are great, they’re doing 

a terrific job, they’re totally dedicated, but there just are not 

enough of them, and they’re not adequately trained for the role or 

positions needed. Congress has to help the Army meet its commitment to support the troops on future expeditionary missions by authorizing additional Army contracting personnel. 

To meet the critical need for contract post-award management, 

the Commission recommends that the DCMA become the DOD 

worldwide contract management center of excellence. To do this, 

DCMA needs additional resources. The House Appropriations Committee has acknowledged the need for more DCMA personnel by recently stating, ‘‘It is clear that DOD currently lacks the means to 

provide proper oversight of its service contracts, in part because of 

an insufficient number of contract oversight personnel.’’ The Commission believes the 583 DCMA billets that we asked for are needed for Army support alone. Of course, if DCMA does not get this 

new mission, then the Services are going to have to fill that responsibility and get additional resources for it. 

Third, the Commission recommends congressional action to improve incentives for Army civilian contracting personnel who volunteer to deploy for expeditionary contracting. Right now, as I said, 

they are undervalued. They’re undervalued in their compensation, 

in their education and training, in their career opportunities, and 

with the lack of other occupational incentives. As a result, many 

approved contracting positions simply go unfilled, especially in the 

theater. The Nation owes this dedicated corps of government civilian patriots its appreciation and far better treatment than they’re 

getting. 

Congress can help address this problem by providing government 

civilians tax-free status when deployed, just as their military and 

private-sector contractor counterparts are receiving, and also provide them long-term medical care and life insurance for in-theater 

injury or death. Our deployed military are tax-free from the moment they hit the ground, and they have long-term medical coverage and life insurance for injuries or death sustained while deployed; yet, comparable benefits are not accorded to deployed government civilians. If DOD is to incentivize its civilian workforce to 

deploy to what can be extremely hostile work environments, they 

must be afforded tax treatment and benefits coverage comparable 

to that of the military. 

In addition, Congress should provide standby removal of the pay 

cap for deployed civilians for any future expedition. Although this 

has been done for Iraq, it is specific to the current engagement and 

not available for the next time. 

Fourth, the Commission recommends that Congress enable funding flexibility through an adequately resourced contingency operations transfer fund. This would be a defense transfer fund without 

color-of-money or fiscal-year limitations, with the DOD responsible, 

10

certainly, for providing Congress with insight by reporting on the 

expenditures and on the savings. This recommendation is based on 

what existed in the Balkans, called an Overseas Contingency Operation Transfer Fund, which was approved by Congress, and which 

actually currently exists for AID. However, right now, such a fund 

does not exist for Iraq. We believe that, not only should it be created for Iraq, but also for any future expeditionary operations, on 

a legislative standby basis. 

Fifth, and finally, we recommend that Congress provide standby 

legislation to waive many of the provisions, such as small business 

and U.S. labor provisions, Buy American, Berry Amendment, Specialty Metals, and other provisions to allow rapid local buying 

whenever it’s required in expeditionary operations. In Iraq, a Buy 

America waiver does exist; but, again, this is specific to the current 

operation, and, therefore, not available to any future expedition. 

What I’ve just gone through are just some of the highlights of the 

many recommendations contained in the report, but these are particularly relevant for today’s purposes because they require congressional action. 

In addition, the report includes recommended actions for the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense. The Commission 

has briefed both Secretaries, concurrent with the report’s publication and release; in fact, the next day. Both Secretaries have stated 

in public forums that they fully support the Commission’s report 

and have begun to move out quickly on its recommendations. But 

they need congressional help on key aspects of the report which 

I’ve highlighted here today. 

Additionally, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee released a statement on November 1, the day after our report was out, saying that ‘‘Congress will seriously consider the 

Commission’s recommendations, particularly those that require legislative action.’’ 

Given the importance and urgency of these actions in support of 

our troops, the Commission is hopeful that Congress will consider 

some perhaps out-of-cycle action to address the recommendations 

that I’ve outlined here today. 

In closing, I’d like to observe that, too often, it takes a crisis to 

bring about a major change. We believe the Iraq/Kuwait/Afghanistan contracting problems have, in fact, created such a crisis. 

Changes are urgently required in the area of Army contracting and 

across the DOD in related areas, especially directed to future expeditionary operations. These changes are essential to make the institutional Army the generating force in both name and capability. It 

is up to the military and to the secretarial leadership, both in the 

Army and the overall DOD, to bring about these needed changes, 

but they cannot make many of the necessary improvements without congressional assistance. I hope you will agree and provide that 

needed support. I believe our troops deserve it. 

That concludes my prepared remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gansler follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. JACQUES S. GANSLER, PH.D. 

The Secretary of the Army established an independent ‘‘Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations’’ to review the lessons learned in recent operations; and to provide forward-looking recommendations 

11

to ensure that future military operations achieve greater effectiveness, efficiency, 

and transparency. I was honored to chair the Commission and be joined by five distinguished Commissioners with expertise and insight into government acquisition, 

including program management and contracting. The Commissioners included General (Ret.) David Maddox, who represented the Army’s operational community; General (Ret.) Leon Salomon, who represented the Army’s acquisition community; Rear 

Admiral (Ret.) David Oliver, who provided alternate Service representation and recent experience in Iraq, through his service with the Coalition Provisional Authority, and then two very senior, experienced Department of Defense (DOD) civilians 

in David Berteau and George Singley. 

At the Secretary’s direction, we conducted our efforts within a compressed 45-day 

timeframe, indicative of immediate challenges facing the Army. Our focus was on 

how to prevent any shortcomings in Army acquisition and program management in 

expeditionary operations for the next time. Our charter was forward-looking: we 

were tasked to ensure that, institutionally, the Army is best positioned for future 

operations—which will be expeditionary, joint, and likely to be multi-agency political/military events. 

At the outset, it is important to note that other, concurrent activities were underway, focusing on different aspects of today’s challenges. Lieutenant General Ross 

Thompson and Kathryn Condon are co-chairing the Army Contracting Task Force 

that was—and still is—looking at the current fraud issues. Separately, the DOD Inspector General, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Claude Kicklighter, has been looking at 

equipment accountability issues. Outside of DOD, Ambassador Kennedy of the State 

Department has an effort underway to examine private security contracts. Thus, 

current fraud, equipment accountability, and private security contracts were not 

within the purview of this Commission. 

To address our forward-looking tasking, in September and October 2007, the Commission engaged officials within all of the the relevant communities through 122 

interviews. The individuals we heard from represented a wide range of stakeholders, 

from senior military leadership, to field operators, to audit personnel, to contractorsupport personnel, and so forth. We spoke to people both state-side and deployed. 

Our discussions with personnel inside the continental United States (CONUS) were 

important, especially since we defined ‘‘expeditionary’’ as not only outside of CONUS 

but also emergency conditions within CONUS (like a Katrina incident); given that 

there are very great similarities in terms of the responsiveness to both situations. 

We also heard from people currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. 

Given the compact schedule, the Southwest Asia interviews were conducted by video 

teleconference. We separately interviewed the commander of the Joint Contracting 

Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, then the next level of military leadership, and then the 

worker level; all in the absence of their supervisors, so that we were able to get an 

objective, independent assessment. 

Despite the broad spectrum represented by our interviews, we received almost 

universal agreement on what the issues are; what changes are required; and the 

absolute need for change. As a result, the Commission crafted a broad-based strategy for addressing shortcomings; which we published in an independent report 

dated October 31, 2007; and titled Urgent Reform Required: Army Expeditionary 

Contracting. I would request that the Executive Summary from that report be included in the record of today’s proceedings. I appreciate this subcommittee’s invitation to highlight some key findings and recommendations from that report. 

Our key findings include the observation that the Army—and, more broadly, 

DOD—does not have a problem with a single organization or a group of individuals; 

rather, the Army and DOD are faced with a systemic challenge in executing expeditionary operations, both from an operational and an institutional vantage point. The 

‘‘Operational Army’’ is expeditionary and on a war footing. Yet, it has not fully recognized the impact of the large number of contractors involved in expeditionary operations and on their potential impact to mission success. In fact, today, with approximately 160,000 contractors in the Iraq/Afghanistan/Kuwait zone, they represent about 50 percent of the ‘‘total force.’’ Additionally, critical segments of the 

‘‘Institutional Army’’—which supports the ‘‘Operational Army’’—have not adapted in 

order to provide responsive acquisitions and sustainment for expeditionary operations. Some specific examples where shortcomings exist include:

• Financial management—On the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program 

(LOGCAP) last year, there were 141 incremental funding contract modifications. That means that the contract had to be modified 141 times, just because the approved money was not being adequately released (by Office of 

Management and Budget, Office of the Secretary of Defense Comptroller, 

and/or Army Comptroller). This is inconsistent with war-time needs. We 

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have to be able to provide the money in a timely fashion, in order to run 

expeditionary operations effectively and efficiently. 

• Civilian personnel—Our Government civil servants do not qualify for favored income tax benefits (comparable to military personnel and contractors 

in the same situation) when deployed in support of expeditionary operations; and do not have the benefit of long-term medical coverage for injuries sustained in-theater. Nor is their life insurance coverage extended for 

‘‘acts of war;’’ yet they are asked to ‘‘volunteer’’ to go into the war zone. 

• Military personnel—There are no longer any Army General Officer positions for career contracting professionals. In 1990, there were five. So there 

is little incentive to pursue this career field. Yet, for expeditionary operations, we need contracting people in uniform in this critical area to be 

leading in the war zone. 

• Contracting and contract management—The contracting process is very 

complicated and involves multiple stakeholders. This is not simply signing 

a piece of paper to create a contract. The process ranges from defining requirements all the way through the 70-plus steps of post-award contract 

management, to ensure mission accomplishment. When done properly these 

important functions ensure efficient use of our tax dollars and control 

waste, fraud, and abuse, but we found they were often not done; and, when 

done at all, it was a ‘‘pick-up game.’’

Contracting should be a core capability of the Army, but it currently is treated 

as an operational and institutional side issue. 

We found that the DOD has an extremely dedicated corps of contracting people. 

The problem is they are understaffed, overworked, under-trained, under-supported, 

and, I would argue, most importantly, under-valued. Some data points illustrate the 

current challenges:

• Only 3 percent or so of Army contracting personnel are active duty military. Many more trained and experienced military personnel (officers and 

non-commissioned officers) are required in an expeditionary environment. 

• The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 required 

DOD to reduce its acquisition workforce by 25 percent by the end of fiscal 

year 2000. After those reductions, the Department has not increased the acquisition workforce, even though the budget has gone up dramatically since 

September 11, 2001. In fact, despite about a seven-fold workload increase, 

and the greater complexity of contracting in this intense environment, the 

civilian and military contracting workforce has been declining; and of those 

remaining, only 56 percent of the military officers and 53 percent of the civilians in the contracting career field are certified for their current positions. 

Based on the valuable lessons learned, the Commission developed recommendations that address the gravity of the situation, and the urgent need for reform. In 

short, the Commission identified four key elements to future success:

1. Contracting personnel—increase the stature, quantity, and career development of contracting personnel, military and civilian (especially for expeditionary operations); 

2. Organization and responsibility—restructure the Army contracting organization and restore its overall responsibility to facilitate high-quality 

contracting and contract management in both expeditionary and peacetime 

operations; 

3. Training and tools—provide training and tools for overall contracting 

activities in expeditionary operations; and 

4. Legislative, regulatory, and policy—obtain legislative, regulatory, and 

policy assistance to enable contracting effectiveness in expeditionary operations.

Our report covers the details of the first three areas, so today I would like to focus 

on the fourth category, and ask for Congressional assistance with the legislative aspects of the Commission’s recommendations. 

First, we recommend that Congress authorize General Officer billets for Army 

contracting and Joint contracting. Specifically, this Commission recommends that 

five new Army General Officers, as well as one Senior Executive Service billet, be 

established and ‘‘fenced,’’ for the Secretary to assign to meet this urgent need. Five 

additional joint general or flag billets be established, including a three-star for the 

expanded scope of the Defense Contract Management Agency (which we strongly 

recommend), and with Service ‘‘back-fill’’ authorizations for the joint positions. 

These military officer billets should not be created at the expense of existing civilian 

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Senior Executive Service contracting authorizations in the Army workforce. These 

must be maintained. 

In the past decade and a half, we have witnessed the elimination of General Officers in the contracting field. As I noted, in 1990, there were five Army General Officers. Some started as two-star positions, were reduced to one-star, and then all five 

were eliminated. In the Joint commands, all four contracting Flag and General Officer positions have similarly disappeared. Today, all that remains is one temporary 

position: the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, which is being filled 

now by an Air Force officer. The Commission believes this backslide needs to be 

remedied. We must at least get back to where we were in 1990. 

General officers must lead an Army transformation to make contracting an Army 

core competence. The Army needs general officers who know contracting and can 

serve as functional advocates for expeditionary operations; and to avoid the problems that are now being experienced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. These general officers, who must be permanently assigned to contracting, will initiate and sustain improvement to Army acquisition, grow future leaders, and support leadership 

efforts. Our report identifies the specific positions the required general officers 

would fill, as well as the organizational changes required to achieve the desired 

transformation in Army and Joint contracting. 

Second, the Commission recommends an increase in Army contracting personnel 

authorizations by 1,983. That includes increasing Army military by 400 and civilian 

by 1,000, as well as providing 583 billets, military and civilian, for Army support 

to DCMA. The Army contracting personnel total increase is not that significant, relative to the total people currently in the Army contracting career field, even including the DCMA fill-in. 

In 1990, the Army had approximately 10,000 people in contracting. This was reduced to approximately 5,500, where it has largely remained; while the dollar value 

of Army contracts has increased 331 percent, and the number of Army contract actions increased 654 percent (from approximately 52,900 to 398,700 between 1992 

and 2006). 

The Army is the DOD ‘‘Executive Agent’’ for contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

but is unable to fill military or civilian contracting billets, in either quantity or 

qualifications. There are far too few Army contracting personnel in-theater to meet 

their commitments. Congress must help the Army meet its commitment to support 

the troops on future expeditionary missions by authorizing additional Army contracting personnel. 

To meet the critical need for contract post-award management, the Commission 

recommends that DCMA become DOD’s ‘‘worldwide, contract management center of 

excellence.’’ To do this, DCMA needs additional resources. The House Appropriations Committee has acknowledged the need for more DCMA personnel by recently 

saying, ‘‘It is clear that DOD currently lacks the means to provide proper oversight 

of its service contracts, in part because of an insufficient number of contract oversight personnel.’’ The Commission believes 583 DCMA billets are needed for Army 

support alone. Of course, if DCMA does not perform worldwide contract management for DOD, the Services are going to have to fulfill this responsibility, and will 

need to be resourced for it. 

Third, the Commission recommends congressional action to improve incentives for 

Army civilian contracting personnel who volunteer to deploy for expeditionary contracting. Right now, they are undervalued—in compensation; education and training; career opportunities; and other occupational incentives. As a result, many approved contracting positions go unfilled, especially in-theater. The DOD owes this 

dedicated core of civilian patriots its appreciation and better treatment. Congress 

can help address this problem by providing government civilians tax-free status 

when deployed (like their military and contractor counterparts), and long-term medical care and life insurance for in-theater injury or death. Our deployed military are 

tax free from the moment they hit the ground and have long-term medical coverage 

and life insurance for any injuries or death sustained while deployed. Yet comparable tax benefits are not accorded to deployed government civilians. If DOD is 

to incentivize its civilian workforce to deploy to what can be extreme and hostile 

work environments, they must be afforded tax treatment and benefits coverage comparable to that of the military. In addition, Congress should provide ‘‘stand-by’’ removal of the pay cap for deployed civilians, for any future expedition. Although this 

has been done for Iraq, it is specific to the current engagement and not available 

for the next time. 

Fourth, the Commission recommends that Congress enable funding flexibility 

through an adequately resourced ‘‘contingency operations transfer fund.’’ This would 

be a defense transfer fund without ‘‘color of money’’ or fiscal year limitations, with 

the DOD responsible for providing Congress with insight via reporting on expendiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
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tures and savings. This recommendation is based on the Balkans’ ‘‘Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund,’’ which was approved by Congress, and which currently exists for AID. However, right now, such a fund does not exist for Iraq, and 

we believe that not only should it be created for Iraq, but also for any future expeditionary operations, on a legislative ‘‘stand-by’’ basis. 

Fifth, and finally, we recommend that Congress provide ‘‘stand-by’’ legislation to 

waive small business and U.S. labor provisions, Buy American, Berry Amendment, 

Specialty Metals and other such provisions to allow rapid, local buying, if required, 

in expeditionary operations. In Iraq, a ′′Buy America′′ waiver exists, but again this 

is specific to the current operation and therefore not available to any future expedition. 

The preceding are just some highlights of the many recommendations contained 

in the report, but which are particularly relevant for today’s purposes because they 

require Congressional action. In addition, the report includes recommended actions 

for the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense. The Commission has 

briefed both Secretaries, concurrent with the report’s publication and release. Both 

Secretaries indicated that they fully support the committee’s report and have begun 

to move out quickly on its recommendations. But they need congressional help on 

key aspects of the report, which I have highlighted here today. 

Additionally, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee released a 

statement on November 1 saying that ‘‘Congress will seriously consider the Commission’s recommendations, particularly those that require legislative action.’’ 

Given the importance and urgency of these actions in support of our troops, the 

Commission is hopeful that Congress will consider some out-of-cycle action to address the recommendations I have outlined today. 

In closing, I would like to observe that too often it takes a crisis to bring about 

major change. We believe the Iraq/Kuwait/Afghanistan contracting problems have 

created such a crisis! Changes are urgently required in the area of Army contracting—especially directed to future expeditionary operations. These changes are 

essential to make the Institutional Army the ‘‘Generating Force’’ in both name and 

capability. It is up to the military and secretariat leadership (both in the Army and 

the overall DOD) to bring about the needed changes. They cannot make many of 

the necessary improvements without congressional assistance. 

I hope you will agree and provide that needed support. Our troops deserve it. 

This concludes my prepared statement.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your statement. 

Now let me call on Secretary Bolton for your statement. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CLAUDE M. BOLTON, JR., ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS, 

AND TECHNOLOGY; ACCOMPANIED BY LTG ROSS N. THOMPSON III, USA, MILITARY DEPUTY TO THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS, AND 

TECHNOLOGY; AND KATHRYN A. CONDON, EXECUTIVE DEPUTY TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL, ARMY MATERIEL 

COMMAND 

General BOLTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Thune, distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, first of all, 

let me thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind words at the beginning of this hearing, and those of Senator Inhofe. You’re correct, I 

will step down after 6 years—next month, 6 years to the day—and 

I can tell you that it’s been a joy, an honor serving the men and 

women who are on point for us in the United States Army. I want 

to take this time to thank you and the other members of this subcommittee for your support to the Army and to me over these last 

6 years. The issues that we have faced have been critical, and with 

your help, we were able to get through all of them. We’re about to 

discuss, in this hearing this afternoon, another very important 

topic that, from my confirmation hearing to today, I have always 

15

emphasized the need for addressing what Jacques Gansler and his 

Commission has already done. 

I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on the Report of the Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations, chaired by Dr. Jacques Gansler, 

and the complementary in-house Army Contracting Task Force, cochaired by my military deputy, Lieutenant General Ross Thompson 

and Kathryn Condon, the Executive Deputy to the Commanding 

General at the Army Materiel Command, both of whom join me 

here today. We have a joint written statement that I respectfully 

request be made a part of the record for today’s hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to commend 

Dr. Gansler and his Commission members and staff on their good 

work. I would also like to commend General Thompson and Ms. 

Condon for their work. 

If I may emphasize a point also made just moments ago by Dr. 

Gansler, that his Commission looked at the long-term strategic 

view of the Army’s acquisition and contracting system in support 

of expeditionary operations, the Army Contracting Task Force reviewed current contracting operations and took immediate actions, 

as warranted. The two efforts combined have given the Army a 

clear way ahead. 

Secretary of the Army Pete Geren has directed swift implementation of specific recommendations of both the Commission and the 

Task Force. For example, the Army is accelerating plans to set up 

the military structure recommended by the Commission. The Army 

has approved a two-star-level Army Contracting Command organization under the Army Materiel Command, including two subordinate commands, a one-star Expeditionary Contracting Command 

and a restructured one-star-level Installation Contracting Organization. The Army also plans to grow the military contracting structure in line with the Commission’s recommendations by approximately 400 soldiers, and our civilian contracting workforce by an 

additional 1,000 professionals. 

A critically important issue, Mr. Chairman, is the size, structure, 

and training of the contracting workforce, both civilian and military. The acquisition workforce has declined significantly in the 

last decade, while the number of dollars that are executed by the 

Army has increased by more than 80 percent. The United States 

Army has never fought an extended conflict that required such reliance on contractor support. 

We are currently addressing the need to expand, train, structure, 

and empower our contracting personnel to support a full range of 

military operations. We’re also initiating discussions with leaders 

of the contracting communities in the Navy, Air Force, and the Defense Logistics Agency to explore increased collaboration and workload distribution. 

Expeditionary operations in Iraq/Afghanistan have placed extraordinary demands on the contracting system and our contracting 

support personnel. The Army has deployed more than 550,000 soldiers through Kuwait. We went from supporting one Kuwait base 

camp in 2002 to supporting eight in 2007, which required increased 

capacity in billeting, feeding, and general support. In Kuwait alone, 

16

the annual value of contract support increased from $150 million 

in 2002 to nearly $1 billion in 2006. 

Mr. Chairman, the vast majority of our military and civilian contracting personnel perform well in tough and austere conditions. 

The Army is working hard to ensure that policies/procedures are in 

place for all joint expeditionary contracting operations. The success 

of our warfighters is linked directly to the success of the contracting workforce. 

One of the things that you asked me, Mr. Chairman—when we 

met last April—relates to what we’re going to talk about today, and 

that’s the size of the acquisition workforce and the adequacy of that 

workforce. I mentioned to you then, I paraphrased when I said in 

my confirmation testimony, that, in my view—and this was in 

2001, when I appeared before the committee—that, during my tenure, nearly 50 percent of the acquisition workforce was eligible to 

retire. A lot of that has come to pass. 

Last Friday, for example, I retired the most experienced program 

executive officer that the Army has—331⁄2 years, 10 years in that 

position. While the officer who replaced him is well qualified and 

experienced, he does not have 331⁄2 years of experience. That is 

something you cannot do overnight. Every testimony that I’ve given 

in every hearing on this Hill, the last paragraph has always addressed the need to look at the workforce—contracting, engineers, 

program managers—because we have allowed that valuable workforce, talented workforce, to atrophy over the last 10 to 15 years, 

and we must get that back. 

We have the world’s finest Army—the most powerful, the most 

capable, the most respected the world has ever known. It’s that 

way because of the leadership, the men and women who occupy the 

ranks, the training, and the equipment. The equipment is worldclass, and the equipment is because of the acquisition workforce 

contracting a big part of that. If we do not get that right, I submit 

that our military of the future will suffer greatly. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for allowing the opportunity to appear here this afternoon. I welcome this opportunity. That concludes my remarks, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Secretary Bolton, General 

Thompson, and Ms. Condon follows:]

JOINT PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. CLAUDE M. BOLTON, JR., LTG N. ROSS

THOMPSON III, USA, AND KATHRYN A. CONDON

INTRODUCTION

Chairman Akaka, Senator Thune, and distinguished members of the Armed Services Committee: We thank you for the opportunity to report to you on the U.S. 

Army’s comprehensive, ongoing efforts to ensure policies and procedures are in place 

for all joint, expeditionary contracting operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, 

and to better prepare the Army for acquisition and logistical support of combat operations in the future. 

The candid and comprehensive report, by Dr. Jacques Gansler and the Members 

of his Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary 

Operations on the U.S. Army’s acquisition and contracting system, has given us insights for the way ahead. The Commission made four overarching recommendations 

to ensure the success of future expeditionary operations:

(1) Increase the stature, quantity, and career development of military and 

civilian contracting personnel, particularly for expeditionary operations; 

(2) Restructure organization and restore responsibility to facilitate contracting and contract management; 

17

(3) Provide training and tools for overall contracting activities in expeditionary operations; and 

(4) Obtain legislative, regulatory, and policy assistance to enable contracting effectiveness in expeditionary operations. 

The Commission’s four key recommendations for improvement are consistent with 

the issues identified by the Army Contracting Study completed in 2005 and the 

Army Contracting Task Force, which was Co-Chaired by LTG N. Ross Thompson 

III, USA, and Kathryn A. Condon, the Executive Deputy to the Commanding General at the U.S. Army Materiel Command. The Army is aggressively addressing the 

structural weaknesses and shortcomings identified in order to improve current and 

future expeditionary contracting activities. Our actions stretch across the Army and 

include an ongoing, comprehensive review of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development, personnel and facilities. 

It is important to emphasize that Dr. Gansler’s Commission was chartered to look 

at the long-term, strategic view of the Army’s acquisition and contracting system in 

support of expeditionary operations. To complement the Commission’s strategic review, the Army Contracting Task Force was formed to review current contracting 

operations and take immediate action where appropriate. The Secretary of the Army 

has directed the Commanding General of the Army Materiel Command, General 

Benjamin Griffin, to report to him, through the acting Under Secretary of the Army, 

Nelson M. Ford, to implement specific recommendations of both the Gansler Commission and the Army Contracting Task Force as expeditiously as possible. For example, the Army is accelerating plans to set-up the military structure recommended 

by the Commission. 

The Army has approved a two star-level Army Contracting Command organization under Army Materiel Command, including two subordinate commands; a onestar expeditionary contracting command and a restructured one-star level installation contracting organization. The Army is in the process of identifying the individuals by name to lead these organizations. We plan to grow our military contracting 

structure in the Active Force in line with the Commission recommendations by approximately 400 soldiers and our civilian contracting workforce by an additional 

1,000 members. 

U.S. ARMY ACTIONS

As a result of the ongoing operations in Southwest Asia, the Army has increased 

the focus on contingency contracting. Up until just a year ago, we did not have a 

defined contingency contracting structure to support expeditionary operations or 

support a modular Army. We recently established a contingency contracting structure that consists of contracting support brigades, contingency contracting battalions, and four-person contingency contracting teams. Each contracting support brigade is commanded by a colonel, who assists the Army Service Component Commander (ASCC), a three star commander, in his contracting support—planning and 

coordinating contracting operations in a theater of operations. The brigades oversee 

contingency contracting battalions and teams—Active, Reserve, and National 

Guard—in executing the ASCC’s contracting support plan. The Contracting Support 

Brigades’ battalions and teams are just now being activated, and they will coordinate and integrate their plans with Army Field Support Brigades. These two new 

brigade designs are designed to support the Army modular force by developing a 

single, seamless, fully integrated planning cell to provide quick response and command and control of acquisition, logistics, and technology capabilities across the 

spectrum of conflict. As a result of the work of the Gansler Commission and the 

Army Contracting Task Force, we are planning to increase the number of brigades, 

battalions, and teams to better posture the Army to support contingency operations. 

As the scope and scale of contracting in Southwest Asia evolved, the Army recognized the need to assess its contract management capacity. The Army conducted audits and investigations into the oversight, execution, and management of contracting 

in the theater of operations, and these audits and investigations are ongoing. While 

the vast majority of our military and civilian contracting personnel who award and 

manage these contracts perform well in extreme conditions, auditors and investigators discovered cases of potential fraud in contracting operations with the worst 

cases originating in Kuwait. Currently, there are 80 ongoing criminal investigations 

involving contract fraud committed against the U.S. military in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait theater of operations. The Army acted decisively to correct deficiencies specifically identified in Kuwait with the following agencies involved in corrective actions: the U.S. Army Audit Agency (AAA); the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID); the U.S. Army Contracting Agency; the U.S. Army MateVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
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riel Command (AMC); and the U.S. Army Sustainment Command, all working in 

cooperation with the Defense Contract Management Agency. 

In 2005, the Army began audits and CID increased investigative activity into allegations of corrupt contracting in Southwest Asia. Deployed commanders also expressed their concerns and requested the Army to send in additional CID Special 

Agents and auditors from AAA and from CID. In 2005, CID established the Iraq 

Fraud Detachment and in 2006, CID established the Kuwait Fraud Office—both 

staffed with specially trained CID Special Agents. Throughout these investigations, 

the Army has updated Congress and taken corrective actions as warranted. 

In February 2007, after then-Secretary of the Army, Dr. Francis Harvey, was 

briefed on the matter, he directed further action to correct deficiencies, including an 

assessment of contracting activities throughout Central Command and implementation of a Corrective Action Plan to address issues. 

As a result, in March 2007, a senior Contracting Operations Review Team was 

deployed to review all contract operations in theater. In April 2007, the Army began 

implementing a Contracting Action Plan that reorganized the Kuwait Contracting 

Office, installed new leadership, established a Joint Logistics Procurement Support 

Board, increased staffing, deployed senior contracting professionals and attorneys to 

Kuwait, and provided additional ethics training and assigned legal support. 

In addition, the Army published the following guidance designed to improve management of service acquisitions and to strengthen oversight, surveillance and documentation of contractor’s performance.

(1) The Army’s Source Selection Manual was revised and incorporated 

into our acquisition supplement. It is a comprehensive source selection tool 

designed to provide flexibility in the source selection process while enabling 

Army contracting officers to design and execute their source selection plans 

and Requests for Proposal (RFPs) to provide optimum solutions to meet 

their customers needs. Source selection training is now required for every 

source selection team member to ensure they understand their roles and responsibilities. 

(2) In response to section 812 of the National Defense Authorization Act 

for Fiscal Year 2006, we adjusted our management framework for review 

and approval of service contracts at both the strategic and tactical levels. 

Since 2003, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Policy and Procurement, along with other key senior Army leaders, has reviewed and approved service strategies with a combined total value greater than $231 billion. 

(3) Contracting officers have been directed to appoint a trained contracting officer’s representative (COR) for every service contract awarded 

with an estimated value greater than $2,500. To ensure that systematic 

quality assurance methods are used during contract administration, quality 

assurance surveillance plans must also be prepared and implemented. 

(4) A standard, minimum training requirement has been established for 

Army CORs. They must complete the Defense Acquisition University online continuous learning module, ‘‘COR with a Mission Focus,’’ prior to appointment. As of November 1, 2007, over 4,500 Army personnel have completed this course. 

(5) Acquisition leadership reiterated the requirement for contractor performance to be adequately documented and performance reports prepared, 

entered, and maintained in our performance assessment systems. We will 

not allow poor performers to be rewarded with more work. 

(6) A reminder was sent to the entire Army Acquisition workforce addressing their responsibilities as public servants and stewards of the taxpayer’s investment and exhorting them to ensure that their actions remain 

above reproach, both in reality and appearance.

Written guidance is of no benefit, unless it is executed by a capable, trained workforce. Recognizing this need, the Army convened the first Army Procuring Contracting Officer (PCO) Training symposium. Over 500 PCOs were trained in critical 

areas now demanding increased proficiency. A wide range of topics were covered, 

including cost and pricing and source selection requirements as well as contracting 

integrity. The Army has also initiated training for our Heads of Contracting Activities to heighten their awareness of roles and responsibilities associated with supporting the mission of their command in the contracting arena. 

Upholding the highest ethical standards while discharging our duties is of paramount concern and while we have confidence in the talent and professionalism of 

the Army’s acquisition workforce, we must remain vigilant to potential compromises 

of integrity. We are actively engaged in the DOD efforts to eliminate areas of vulVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
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nerability within Defense contracting. The ASA(ALT) staff is leading a subcommittee effort looking at Sustained Senior Leadership issues and other personnel 

from the organization are reviewing areas associated with proper contract surveillance. To obtain an Army-wide perspective on procurement operations we recently 

chartered a corresponding Army Contracting Integrity Panel. We’ve requested membership from each Army functional area involved with contracting. The panel will 

examine contracting integrity drivers that have the greatest impact on 

vulnerabilities relating to fraud, waste and abuse in our contracting system. 

As previously mentioned, the Army Contracting Task Force mission was to examine current Army operations and future plans for providing contracting support to 

contingency or other military operations. The Task Force looked at contracting activities across the Army. There is contract authority in many of the commands in 

the Army, and that contract authority is delegated from the Assistant Secretary position to the head of contracting activities in different organizations and commands 

within the Army. In addition, the Task Force studied actions of AAA and CID for 

both insight and lessons learned. 

In the short-term, the Army augmented the staff in Kuwait with additional individuals to assist the warfighter in translating their requirements into statements 

of work and additional contract specialists and contracting officers to facilitate contract execution of those requirements. This augmentation is short-term, about 90 

days, and is designed to make sure that the commander there has the resources 

needed to deal with the present workload. Part of that additional workload is the 

orderly transfer of existing and any future major contract actions to the acquisition 

center at Rock Island, Illinois, that supports the Army Sustainment Command 

under AMC. By the end of the 90-day period, we expect the staff level to number 

around 50 people manning the contracting office in Kuwait. 

The Acquisition Center at Rock Island established a dedicated team of nine contracting experts with the support of legal experts focused solely on large dollar contracts in support of Kuwait operations. This team is ensuring all past and future 

contract actions associated with these large dollar contracts are executed in accordance with all laws and regulations. The team is resolving a number of claim actions, 

definitizing unpriced actions, and issuing new solicitations for requirements such as 

non-tactical vehicles. We expect to keep this team in place for the duration of the 

conflict. 

The Army is systematically reviewing all of the Kuwait contract files from fiscal 

year 2003 to fiscal year 2006 to identify any issues that haven’t otherwise been addressed by an ongoing investigation by either AAA or CID. During this time period 

there were approximately 6,000 contracts awarded (totaling about 18,000 contract 

actions) by the Kuwait contracting office, so we are initially using a sampling technique to determine if there are any additional indications of fraudulent activity. So, 

this is quite an undertaking, but it is important to ensure we have reviewed the 

files thoroughly. The review of contract actions is taking place both in Kuwait where 

contracts under $25,000 are being examined and at AMC’s Acquisition Center in 

Warren, Michigan, where the review team is looking at contracts over $25,000 with 

the assistance of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy contracting experts. We are also 

working with the AAA, CID, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial 

Management and Comptroller in reviewing financial data to determine if appropriate disbursement and accounting of payments have been made. Initial and ongoing review of all contracts and contract actions has revealed no additional fraudulent activities to date. 

We are increasing Contracting Operation Reviews in both scope and frequency. 

The Army periodically conducts Contract Operations Reviews looking at contracting 

organizations to make sure that contracting activities are following the regulations 

and procedures and appropriately addressing emerging issues. These reviews are 

part of the routine examination of contracting activities along with internal review 

audits by the AAA and the Army and Department of Defense Inspectors General. 

A critically important issue is the size, structure, and training of the contracting 

workforce—both military and civilian. The acquisition workforce has declined significantly in the last decade while the number of dollars that we are executing in 

the Army has increased by more than 80 percent. The U.S. Army has never fought 

an extended conflict that required such reliance on contractor support. We are currently addressing the need to expand, train, structure, and empower our contracting 

personnel to support the full range of military operations. We have increased the 

number of contracting interns and are pursuing associated increases in training 

funds. We are partnering with the Defense Acquisition University and state and 

local universities to incorporate contracting courses into their curriculums. Our goal 

is to bring more qualified, trained individuals into the workforce at an accelerated 

pace and ultimately perform at the jouneyman level in a shorter period. We are also 

20

initiating discussions with leaders of the contracting communities in the U.S. Navy, 

U.S. Air Force, and the Defense Logistics Agency to explore increased collaboration 

and workload distribution. 

CONCLUSION

As stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars, the Army must do a better job of managing 

and documenting contractor performance. Service and construction contracts, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the United States, or elsewhere in the world, represent an 

ever-increasing percentage of our overall contract dollars—now surpassing the dollars awarded under major weapon systems programs. Greater emphasis must be 

placed on the management and oversight of all types of service and construction 

contracts. This includes documenting the contractor’s performance in accordance 

with policy. 

Expeditionary military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed extraordinary demands on the contracting system and our contracting support personnel. 

As stated before, the vast majority of our military and civilian contracting personnel 

perform well in tough, austere conditions. Their customers are the warfighters—the 

men and women who depend on them to do their jobs. In the end, the success of 

our warfighters is linked directly to the success of the contracting workforce. We are 

working hard to ensure that policies and procedures are in place for all joint, expeditionary contracting operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait or anywhere else 

we deploy. The objective is to better prepare the Army for acquisition and logistical 

support of combat operations in the future. 

We look forward to your questions and thank you for the opportunity to address 

the members of the committee.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you very much, Secretary 

Bolton. 

We have been joined by the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, and I would like to ask Senator 

Levin whether he has any remarks to make before we begin any 

questions. 

Senator LEVIN. I’ll wait until my questions. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. All right. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank you again, Secretary Bolton, for your testimony 

and I’d like to ask a question of both you and General Thompson. 

The Gansler Commission report states that the Army’s difficulty in 

adjusting to the singular problem of Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, is in large part due to the fact that there are no generals assigned to contracting responsibilities. The Commission recommends 

that Congress authorize, ‘‘a core set of 10 additional general officers for contracting positions.’’ My question to you, Secretary 

Bolton and General Thompson, does the Secretary of the Army and 

Office of the Secretary of Defense concur with this recommendation? 

Secretary BOLTON. Mr. Chairman, I cannot speak for the DOD; 

however, Secretary Geren has reviewed the recommendations, and 

supports them. He has asked the Task Force, co-chaired by General 

Thompson and Ms. Condon, to review those recommendations and 

give him a plan for implementing those, and that includes looking 

at the general officers. That’s five. I cannot comment on what the 

Department will do on that. 

General THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I have a meeting next week 

with the head of our General Officer Management Office, and one 

of the topics of conversation is the support of those five positions. 

I do agree, personally—and Ms. Condon and I, on the Task Force, 

agree with the Gansler Commission recommendations, that there is 

a need for general officers at the top of the contracting structure. 

21

That gives a clear signal to the people that—our military people—

their service is valued, and that there is an opportunity at the top 

of the structure, should they stick with us and perform throughout 

their careers. I think you will see the Army reflect its support of 

that in the very near term, here, as we pick officers for the next 

set of brigadier generals and then the assignment of the officers off 

of that selection list, subject to confirmation by the Senate. 

Senator AKAKA. I heard the recommendations by Secretary 

Bolton. Let me ask you this question. Can we expect to see a legislative proposal from the Department in this regard? Second, how 

long do you think it will take for the Army to staff these new positions you are recommending? 

Secretary BOLTON. I think on the positions, in terms of the flag 

officers, we’re working that as we speak. General Thompson just alluded to what we’re going to be doing over the next few days. So, 

that’s in the work, and we’re working that. 

With regard to legislative proposals, as we go through and look 

at what Dr. Gansler has offered us, there will be opportunities, I’m 

sure, to make proposals. Of course, the Commission has already 

recommended some of those. 

My view is—and I agree with a number of those—I would love 

to work within the laws that we currently have, within the rules 

and regulations we currently have. It is clear we’ll need some legislative support, but my view is, we have enough flexibility now to 

do some things that need to be done that are recommended by the 

Gansler report, and we ought to do those, as well. 

Senator AKAKA. Secretary Bolton and General Thompson, the 

Gansler Commission report states that, ‘‘The number and expertise 

of military contracting professionals must be significantly increased,’’ to address the problems we have experienced in theater. 

Consequently, the Commission recommends that the Army hire, as 

was mentioned, 2,000 new contracting personnel. 

Secretary Bolton, you have told this committee, on many occasions, that the Army does not have the acquisition workforce it 

needs. Most recently, you told us last April that the Army does not 

have a sufficient number of contracting officers and contract administrators, and that you were working on the problem. 

Secretary Bolton and General Thompson, do you believe that you 

now have the support you need within the Department of the Army 

to address this problem, including the support of the Secretary of 

the Army and the support of the Secretary of Defense? 

Secretary BOLTON. I believe we have won the attention of the 

DOD, as well as the Army. I believe we have the support of both. 

I know that’s true for Secretary Geren. It’s regrettable that it took 

a crisis such as this to really highlight that for everyone, but my 

discussions with the Secretary clearly indicate that we have his 

support, and his energetic support, in making sure that we not only 

fix this in the short-term, but fix it for the long-term. 

Senator AKAKA. General Thompson, would you comment on that? 

General THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I agree with what Secretary 

Bolton stated, that we do have the strong support of Secretary 

Geren, and I think that strong support is reflected in the statement 

for the record today, where you’ll see us endorsing the Gansler 

Commission recommendation to grow the military contracting 

22

workforce by 400 and to grow the civilian contracting workforce in 

the Army by about 1,000. 

Ms. Condon and I, over the same period of time that Dr. 

Gansler’s Commission was working, have done the analytical work 

to justify those positions from a workload perspective. As a matter 

of fact, next week the military contracting structure will be formally submitted to the Army’s force structure process, which is the 

way we go through to document the positions and to begin to do 

the necessary actions to stand up the units and to begin the recruitment action. 

So, I do strongly believe that the Army is fully behind this. The 

remaining 600 positions that Dr. Gansler referred to in his report 

are positions in support of the Army that would be part of the 

DCMA. This morning, as a matter of fact, there was a joint meeting between the Army and the DCMA to get to the analytical details about the workload justification for that so we could also 

make the case before the resourcing process and the force structure 

process, in the Army and in the Defense Department, that those 

positions are both necessary and will be supported. 

Senator AKAKA. Before I pass on to Senator Thune, let me ask 

this question of both of you. How long do you think it will take the 

Army to fill the new contracting positions recommended by the 

Commission? Do you have plans to establish interim milestones so 

that we can monitor your progress? 

Secretary BOLTON. I’ll let General Thompson talk about the details. I think, at the top level, over the next year we’ll have a good 

handle on that. I mean that sincerely, even though I won’t be 

there. I know the Army will press forward on that. 

The real question, Mr. Chairman, is, how long does it take to get 

experienced contract personnel? That’s about a 5-year period, to get 

them recruited, trained, moved through the various offices, and 

enough experience that I would feel comfortable putting them in 

the field, particularly in a place like Kuwait or Iraq. 

But, in terms of moving out immediately, we’re going out and 

finding as many people as we can. 

General THOMPSON. Sir, once we document the positions, you 

begin the recruitment process, both with the civilians and the military. I believe it’s going to take us 2 to 3 years to fill that number 

of positions. I do agree with Secretary Bolton that it’s probably 

about 5 to 10 years before you get those people to the level of training and certification and experience that they need to be able to operate somewhat independently. So, my answer would be, probably, 

2 to 3 years to fill that structure, beginning immediately, and part 

of that is just a reflection of the demographics on the military recruiting; then, in a very low unemployment market, we have to 

make sure that we get the message across to the civilian workforce 

that we want to bring in as interns and make contracting professionals for the Army and DOD, that this is a viable and a lucrative 

career field, and that we value their service, and we have to put 

the right recruiting incentives, and pay and bonus incentives there 

to be able to bring them in, and then retain them once we bring 

them in. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Senator Thune. 

23

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thank you all for your testimony. Thank you, Dr. Gansler 

and members of your Commission, for a very complete and thorough report. 

You’ve all, I think, answered this already in your testimony in 

response to Senator Akaka’s questions, but the Army and the Defense Department seem to support and embrace many of the report’s recommendations. My understanding is that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics, John 

Young, was going to issue a Department-wide directive on the report. Do you know if that’s been done? 

Secretary BOLTON. I don’t know. 

General THOMPSON. Sir, to my knowledge, that’s not been done. 

I do know that there’s a number of actions that are ongoing between the Office of Secretary of Defense and the Services. One of 

those, in particular, that I am actively participating in as a senior 

member for the Army is the response to the section 854 that addresses contingency contracting. I was at a meeting just 10 days 

ago with the senior representatives from all the Services and also 

the Secretary of Defense. I do know, because I have talked, not directly to Mr. Young, but to his executive assistant, that he embraces the recommendations of the Gansler Commission—‘‘he,’’ Dr. 

Young—and is going to work with his staff in order to make sure 

that there’s consistency across the OSD staff and across the DOD 

to implement the recommendations. 

Senator THUNE. Dr. Gansler, the Army has been actively engaged in trying to better use its Senior Executive Service (SES) in 

support missions. It seems to me that contracting capability could 

be an area in which the total force, especially civilian employees, 

could help take some of the pressure off the uniformed force. But 

you call for the establishment of only one SES billet, five generalofficer Army billets—some will argue that uniformed personnel 

simply cannot be looked to, in the current force structure, to perform and oversee combat support missions that can be undertaken 

by a civilian workforce. Why are they wrong on that? 

Dr. GANSLER. Let me begin by pointing out that 97 percent of the 

contracting personnel in the Army are civilians, and it’s the 3 percent we’re trying to increase. In addition, we feel that in a war 

zone it’s very important to have military leadership and to represent the function at the highest levels in the planning functions, 

in the requirements definition functions, and, of course, in the implementation and the management functions. So, we think that we 

want to emphasize—not that the civilians aren’t doing their job 

and that they’re very, very dedicated—that we also emphasize we 

need more of them. You notice the numbers we asked for were 400 

of the military and 1,000 of the civilian, so we also feel the civilians 

need to be increased. But we feel that this is a function—in a war 

zone—in which the military clearly needs to play a role. 

Now, the DCMA is a joint agency which has both military and 

civilians in it, and that’s one that does fit under the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics—John 

Young’s role. The changing of that function is one of his responsibilities. The staffing of that, the additional 580 or 600 people that 

we talked about for the Army will also have to be people contribVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
24

uted by the Navy and the Air Force into that organization, and 

their role increased, in terms of the DCMA. I do know that Secretary Gates has been concerned to make sure that the Air Force 

and Navy step up to this responsibility of our overall recommendations. It’s not just the Army that fits into this. It’s OSD because 

of the DCMA. It’s also OSD because they establish broad policy in 

the overall DOD contracting activities. The other Services have 

somewhat downgraded their contracting responsibilities and need 

to step back up to that, as well. 

Senator THUNE. Secretary Bolton, do you agree with Dr. 

Gansler’s response? 

Secretary BOLTON. Yes. 

Senator THUNE. Dr. Gansler, assume, for the sake of argument, 

that the Army can’t obtain relief from legal constraints on the 

number of general officers and cannot overcome practical limits on 

the ability to train and reassign more soldiers into the contracting 

career field. What other steps can and should be taken quickly to 

improve the Army’s contracting capability? 

Dr. GANSLER. The reorganization that we suggested can be done 

without waiting until you get the full complement of general officers; they can be filled by senior civilians in those positions. That 

can be done immediately. As Secretary Bolton pointed out—they’ve 

already started moving out on some of those organizational 

changes. Since there are no Army general officers to fill those positions, they’re going to have to fill them, initially, with senior civilians, and that will at least recognize the structure. They can also 

start immediately, as General Thompson said, to promote one or 

two of the key people into the contracting field to give out a signal 

to the overall contracting corps from the military side that this is 

a career path. 

From the civilian side, I think Congress can do something about 

recognizing the fact that you’re asking these people to volunteer to 

go into a war zone and not compensating them appropriately. I 

think that’s not supporting the troops adequately, and I think 

that’s something that can be done, as well. 

So, there are actions that can be taken, even though you can’t 

instantly go out with a chicken hook and bring in all these experienced contracting people—they’re just not there, and they’re very 

much in demand—but you can create incentives, both for the military and the civilians, to start actions immediately. 

Senator THUNE. The report rightly makes the point that, in the 

future, the Defense Department will be conducting more joint and 

expeditionary operations, but the report’s focus was largely on 

shoring up the Army’s expeditionary contracting capability. What 

do your Commission’s findings mean for joint expeditionary contracting capability? If there are problems on this broader level, 

given the likelihood that expeditionary operations will be more 

joint in the future, why should recommended solutions not be more 

joint in nature than was proposed by your Commission? 

Dr. GANSLER. We actually do emphasize the jointness. In fact, 

the DCMA is a joint agency. That will be—the post-award period—

doing all of the implementation, military and civilians, from that 

organization. We did hear from people in the Air Force and Navy 

that they have a need to step up more to the contracting world as 

25

well, and to the whole acquisition arena. In a wartime environment, that has not received the attention that it needs, and we do 

believe that future operations will not only be joint, but will be expeditionary and, therefore, of the type we addressed explicitly. 

I would even go a little further and say, because they’re going 

to be political/military operations, that we’re going to have to work 

out with the State Department and AID in these environments, as 

well. 

General THOMPSON. Senator, if I could just add a couple of points 

on that. The Joint Contracting Command in Iraq today, currently 

headed by an Air Force major general to be replaced by a Navy admiral, here, in January, but the previous two commanders of that 

organization were Army general officers. The first commander was 

Brigadier General Steve Seay, and the second commander of the 

Joint Contracting Command was Major General John Urias. The 

individuals performing the contracting function underneath that 

joint command were from all Services. Because of the small number of military officers, and before—no noncommissioned officers, 

and I’ll get to that in a minute—the preponderance of the staff in 

that Joint Contracting Command are Air Force, because there’s 

about 2,000 military contracting officers in the Air Force, both officer and noncommissioned officer. 

I do know as part of this group that I’m part of, on the cost of 

DOD, we are putting dedicated planners with each combatant command to plan for, in the war plans, contracting, and support with 

contracting, and the plan for that in the exercises, so to make sure 

that linkage is there. There’s also going to be some emphasis on 

putting the right planning cell with the Joint Forces Command as 

they have their global force management responsibilities, and also 

look at exercises across DOD. 

No different than the normal way the military brings forces together, you plan for it, you have that structure there, but, when 

it’s time to execute a mission—be it Iraq or someplace else, in the 

future—you would bring in the members of the Service—all Services, that have contracting expertise, fall them into a joint structure that you define ahead of time, and that you planned for ahead 

of time. Arguably, that didn’t happen over the last few years. It 

was really a pickup game, and we’ve evolved to where we are 

today. The clear recognition across DOD right now is, we can’t let 

that happen in the future. 

Senator THUNE. Good. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Thune. 

Let me call on Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I want to thank all of you for being here, and Secretary 

Bolton, for your service. I have visited with several of you before, 

as you are, maybe, painfully aware. [Laughter.] 

I am deeply concerned about this area of our competency within 

our military, and I spent my trip to Iraq looking at these issues. 

I am now aware that there are approximately 300 different reports 

that have been issued by someone, surrounding the issue of contracting problems in Iraq, whether it is military support or reconstruction. 

26

The reports that you referenced—in fact, the Commission that 

you all worked on, Ms. Condon and General Thompson—that was 

over 2 years ago. I see the word ‘‘urgent’’ on this report. I hear the 

word ‘‘crisis.’’ I have to tell you, when we decided to move thousands of people into harm’s way in the surge plan, that’s how our 

military normally reacts to a crisis in the mission. Can someone explain to me how in the world this has gone on year after year after 

year, committee hearing after committee hearing, report after report after report, and yet we still don’t have anyone who is saying, 

‘‘This is getting fixed.’’ 

How many of you have read the ‘‘Lessons Learned’’ in Bosnia on 

contracting? Okay. Now, it is a really scary thing to read, because—guess what?—it’s everything you’re saying. These were lessons learned in Bosnia, and now we have tens of billions of dollars 

that have gone down the drain. The bottom line is, I think we all 

acknowledge, contracting is here to stay in the active military. 

Would any of you disagree with that? 

Do any of you think we’re ever going to go back to the time 

where a soldier is peeling a potato, cleaning a latrine, or driving 

supply trucks? So, if that’s the case—now, when they were, when 

my dad was peeling potatoes in World War II, there was somebody 

in a uniform he was answerable to. He knew if he did a good job, 

he had a chance to move up; and, if he didn’t, there was big trouble. 

Meanwhile, we gave KBR all their performance bonuses, when 

their performance was terrible under the LOGCAP contract. Frankly, Secretary Bolton, you defended that in April in our exchange, 

and you said you trusted the people in the field. Then this report 

says we can’t trust the people in the field, because they don’t have 

the core competency of contracting. 

Now, when you say you’re moving into getting 400 more people, 

how quickly will there be sufficient contracting oversight in Iraq 

over the LOGCAP contract? How soon? 

Secretary BOLTON. I think, with regard to LOGCAP—and let’s 

understand the differences between the operation in Kuwait, which 

does not have LOGCAP——

Senator MCCASKILL. Correct. 

Secretary BOLTON.—which also does not have DCMA. Within 

Iraq, we have DCMA to monitor the actual performance of the contract, along with a number of other folks, to include the special IG, 

the regular IG, the audit folks, the triple-A, as well as CID, all to 

look at that. Because you pointed it out, there have been many, 

many reports on that, and you and I have discussed those. So, I 

think, in terms of the immediacy of oversight, there is a lot of oversight, plus the Joint Contracting Command. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I’m talking about the core competency, 

though, Secretary. I’m talking about the contracting officer representatives (CORs), I’m talking about the people on the ground 

that are seeing whether those trucks are being burned——

Secretary BOLTON. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL.—for profit or whether those people are actually working when we’re paying them to work. When will we have 

that training and that core competency with those CORs? 

27

Secretary BOLTON. I think, within Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to Kuwait, you’ve had that. In fact, that’s what we did, was 

to focus our experienced people in the war zone itself, within Iraq 

and within Afghanistan. That’s why we put all the oversight there, 

to also look at that. Were we perfect? Absolutely not. Did we learn 

some lessons? Yes, we have. Have we put more people in there? 

Yes. The Joint Contracting Command has grown in the number of 

people over there, who are experienced, to look at that. 

Down in Kuwait, as we went from the LOGCAP after the Gulf 

War the first time, by charter, DCNA no longer looks at those contracts. We lost all that oversight, and we relied upon 20 to 30 folks 

to do that, as it was escalating, in terms of the amount of work. 

Lesson learned. We can’t allow that to happen. What have we 

done? We’ve put more people over in that office, experienced people. The folks who were there, we replaced, we put in a new commander. I personally went there and talked to every one of the 

folks there. I talked to the Command, I looked at what they were 

doing. I went out to the CONEXes to see all the contracts. We reviewed all of those with experienced people there and experienced 

people back here. What’s wrong with that? If you’re taking experienced people from here to do that work, they’re not doing the work 

that we asked them to do back here. That gets back to what Dr. 

Gansler has talked about, ‘‘You need more people.’’ 

The long way of answering your question is, we’re putting the 

best people we have available today to take care of the problems 

as we see it today. We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul right now, until 

we get additional folks in there. But I clearly agree with you that 

we have to do more. In fact, what I would urge, and have urged 

our folks to do—we’ve talked about the operators, great people 

doing great work; they train the way they fight. I have to tell you, 

the support community needs to do the same thing. When we go 

on a deployment, when we go out to NTC, we ought to take the 

support element, to include the contracting folks, and put them out 

there. We ought to exercise those folks the same way they’re being 

exercised in the war zone right now. They ought to be part of the 

war plan, so we know exactly what is going to go on there. 

If you’re going to audit or do an IG or something like a red hat, 

we ought to go out there and make sure, doing the exercise, that 

we pull something on them, just the way we do with the warfighter, to see whether or not they’re going to react properly, and 

then build around that. We’re a long ways from doing it, but if I 

could wave a magic wand, I would do exactly that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I don’t understand why we’re a long way 

from doing it. If we can put thousands of men and women in 

harm’s way in a matter of weeks, why can’t we watch taxpayers’ 

money before taking a decade and noodling it around with 14 commissions making the same recommendations over and over again? 

Why does it take so long? 

Secretary BOLTON. I don’t think we took so long, in terms of putting people in Iraq and Afghanistan. I did that. In 2003, when we 

went into Baghdad, I couldn’t find a contracting officer. I had to 

send one over there. Why? Because we didn’t expect to be there 

that long. I sent a colonel over there. He came back after a month, 

and I had to drag him back, because folks began to realize how imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
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portant he was. I then put a lieutenant colonel over there who was 

only supposed to be there 6 months. He was there 12 months, got 

promoted to colonel while he was there, and we started to build 

that capability as we realized the enormity of the task ahead of us 

and the need for that type of expertise. I think that’s an important 

lesson learned, that if you’re going to go into an operation like that, 

and particularly one that goes from contingency operation—and 

‘‘contingency,’’ by its very nature, is short-term—to one that is nation-building and long-term, you’d better have the support folks 

there to take care of it, both in theater and reachback. 

Secretary BOLTON. That’s the lesson that we learned. Also, starting in 2004, we actually started to build units that would deploy 

with our commanders over there. They’re in place now to do just 

that, focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. Not perfect. It was a pickup. 

We fell behind in a number of areas, but we did focus as best we 

could, with the best expertise we had available at the time. 

The last point I’ll make, and that is getting the people long-term. 

That will be tough, tough because they’re just not there. Just within this area, within the Beltway, just for the Federal Government, 

we’re short nearly 2,000, what I call 1102s, contracting officers, not 

just for the DOD, for everybody. They’re difficult to get, and then, 

when you get them, you have to train them, and you know this. 

You have to train them, they have to be experienced, have to be 

warranted and then put out there, and that just takes time. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to follow up with 

you, Dr. Gansler, in another round of questions. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. We will have another round of questions. 

I’d like to call now on the chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Akaka. 

First let me join you and the other members of the subcommittee 

in thanking Dr. Gansler and the members of the Commission for 

the great work of that Commission. The central finding that the 

Army acquisition workforce is ‘‘understaffed, overworked, undertrained, undersupported, and undervalued,’’ is consistent with the 

view that a number of us have expressed in this committee and in 

this Congress, in the Senate. I hope that the Army’s general endorsement of the Commission’s findings and recommendations will 

create some momentum to address this serious problem, Secretary 

Bolton, and that the general rhetorical support will be translated 

promptly into action. 

Seven months ago, Secretary Bolton, I asked you some questions 

at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the 

LOGCAP contract. At that hearing I asked a series of questions 

about a KBR subcontract for living containers, which is a type of 

trailer that the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) found to be 

overpriced by $100 million. I asked you, Secretary Bolton, why the 

Army decided to pay KBR the full $100 million by which those subcontracts were overpriced, and you referred the question to a General Jerome Johnson, who joined you in representing the Army at 

that hearing. 

29

General Johnson denied that the Army had paid KBR the extra 

money, then I read from an Army document stating that, ‘‘The parties have agreed to recognize the costs of the containers acquired.’’ 

So, I read from a document saying that, in fact, the Army had 

agreed to pay the extra money. General Johnson testified that the 

document was inaccurate that I was reading from. 

Subsequent to the hearing, the Army provided additional information to the committee that, in fact, showed that that document 

was correct, that, as a matter of fact, the extra $100 million was 

paid, that should not have been paid. 

The acknowledgment from the Army after the hearing was that 

the procuring contracting officer, Valiant Duhart, resolved the 

issue by allowing the costs for the containers. 

So, in other words, Secretary, the Army has acknowledged that 

the memorandum that I read at the hearing was correct, that the 

Army had accepted KBR’s arguments for which the DCAA could 

find no factual support and paid the full extra $100 million by 

which the subcontracts were overpriced. 

So, now that the Army has acknowledged that KBR was paid the 

extra $100 million, the overpricing, despite repeated audits in 

which the DCAA rebutted every argument that KBR made in support of the overpayments, my question to you is, why was that 

$100 million paid? 

Secretary BOLTON. General Johnson is no longer within the 

Army Materiel Command who has that contract. Ms. Condon is actually representing headquarters, and she can answer that question. But before she does, you are absolutely correct, we made a 

mistake; General Johnson made a mistake. It may have gotten confused—I won’t talk for him because I’m not sure what was going 

on in his mind. We offered you an answer. I read that answer later 

and I sent you a letter this morning, which I hope you will get 

shortly. On behalf of the Army, we apologize for not providing you 

the right answer. That is certainly not the Army’s style, certainly 

not my style. 

So, let me let Ms. Condon give you a better answer. 

Senator LEVIN. All right, thank you. So, why was the $100 million paid? 

Ms. CONDON. Sir, that was part of a larger settlement on that 

task order for that contract. 

Senator LEVIN. I don’t know what that means, $100 million was 

not supposed to be paid. We have said it was not proper. So, why 

would we pay—we mean—they dropped some claim, if we paid the 

$100 million? 

Ms. CONDON. There were other claims on that contract that——

Senator LEVIN. Well——

Ms. CONDON.—that were part of the settlement, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Will you give this subcommittee two things—give 

us the entire settlement, what was paid, what we objected to that 

we did pay, what the contractor—where did they concede things 

and give up claims, and—give us the whole deal, if you would. 

Ms. CONDON. Sir, if I could take that one and get the information 

back to you, I will do that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

30

Enclosed is a copy of the Post Negotiation Memorandum (enclosure 3) [deleted] 

that provides a summary of the negotiations resulting in the definitization of Task 

Order 59. The costs in question were part of this definitization. Task Order 59 authorized KBR to provide life support to troops deployed in Iraq for the period of time 

between June 13, 2003, and April 30, 2005. This task order was initially issued on 

an undefinitized basis which meant the terms, conditions, and pricing were not 

agreed to at the time KBR was authorized to begin work. Unfortunately, due to 

tempo of operations, changing conditions, and fluctuating requirements, AMC did 

not reach a settlement on the task order until March 31, 2005. The total amount 

of the settlement was approximately $6.3 billion. 

The $99 million in questioned costs for containers is specifically addressed at 

pages 10 and 11 of the Post Negotiation Memorandum (enclosure 3) [deleted]. Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) had questioned these costs in their proposal 

audit (enclosure 1) [deleted] as they identified other sources where the living containers could have been purchased at a lower cost. Much discussion took place during the negotiations with KBR and it was clear there were differing opinions on 

whether the less expensive containers could have been acquired and delivered in the 

needed time frame and whether the less expensive containers included the same 

amenities as the more expensive containers. 

The container costs, while significant in and of themselves, were part of a $6.3 

billion settlement where many costs were of issue. As the Senator may recall, there 

were a lot of questions regarding the cost of meals which represented a much larger 

portion of the $6.3 billion settlement. In a perfect world, the container costs in question would have been negotiated before KBR was authorized to proceed, but KBR 

was given the go ahead to begin incurring costs prior to reaching an agreement on 

terms and conditions and pricing. As a result, KBR had already incurred costs questioned by DCAA and these living containers were being used to house troops. 

In order to reach an agreement on the larger settlement, the contracting officer 

agreed to recognize these container costs in the total estimated cost of the task 

order, but did not include them in the baseline costs for fee purposes. KBR was told 

that in order to earn a fee against these costs, they would need to produce additional facts to better support the reasonableness of these costs. The DCAA memorandum at enclosure 2 [deleted] was provided to the contracting officer to support 

his negotiations with KBR in the event KBR elected to provide additional information justifying the cost of the containers in question. To date they have not done 

so. 

After reviewing these costs and actions in detail, the conclusion of the contracting 

officer was that given the conditions at the time the living containers were being 

purchased by KBR, the contracting officer believed KBR actions were reasonable. 

Furthermore, the contracting officer considered the fact that U.S. troops were already being housed in the containers, thus the Government had benefited from their 

use. As a result, the contracting officer recognized the costs in the larger settlement 

of the task order. 

The enclosed Post Negotiation Memorandum [deleted] demonstrates that there 

were many issues surrounding the negotiations. Other costs proposed by KBR that 

were also questioned by DCAA were not recognized in the settlement, to include 

over $55 million in dining facility costs. 

In the end, the contracting officer used his professional judgment in reaching 

what he believed to be a fair and reasonable price for the effort performed by KBR. 

In reaching this settlement, there were no discussions outside of the Army with the 

exception of DCAA and Defense Contract Management Agency, who were part of the 

Army negotiation team. AMC does not believe there were any outside influences in 

the settlement of these negotiations.

Senator LEVIN. Yes, but in addition, I want to know whether 

there were any conversations between anybody outside of the Army 

relating to that settlement. 

Ms. CONDON. I personally do not know that, but I will find that 

out as well and get that back to you. 

[The information referred to follows:]

In reaching this settlement, there were no discussions outside of the Army with 

the exception of the Defense Contracts Audit Agency and Defense Contract Management Agency, who were part of the Army negotiation team. AMC does not believe 

there were any outside influences in the settlement of these negotiations.

31

Senator LEVIN. All right. That’s a huge amount of money to pay 

which we don’t owe. Do you know what the whole settlement was 

that was involving hundreds of millions, billions, half-billions? 

Ms. CONDON. No, sir, I don’t. As I said, I’ll take that for the 

record and get the exact amount back to you. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Task Order 59 authorized KBR to provide life support to troops deployed in Iraq 

for the period of time between June 13, 2003, and April 30, 2005. This task order 

was initially issued on an undefinitized basis which meant the terms, conditions, 

and pricing were not agreed to at the time KBR was authorized to begin work. Unfortunately, due to tempo of operations, changing conditions, and fluctuating requirements, AMC did not reach a settlement on the task order until March 31, 

2005. The total amount of the settlement was approximately $6.3 billion.

Senator LEVIN. All right. As well as any conversations that took 

place? 

Ms. CONDON. Certainly, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Okay. Thank you. 

Again, my thanks to the subcommittee for taking up this issue. 

We have not taken the time for adequate oversight of much of the 

contracting operations. We, just today, finished our defense authorization bill, which takes up an incredible amount of time every 

year, and the members of the committee and the staff put huge 

amounts of time into that bill. There is no other committee that 

has the responsibility, annually, to produce an authorization bill, 

that I know of. There may be one that’s required by law, to have 

an authorization bill every year, but I don’t know of it, and there’s 

no bill this big, in any event. So, it does take up a huge amount 

of time, and we’re going to continue to look for ways when we can 

allocate more of our committee time and subcommittee time for 

these kind of oversight efforts, which are so critically important. 

So, I want to thank you and the other members of the subcommittee, Mr. Chairman—Senator Thune and Senator McCaskill, 

who bring such a welcome experience and background to issues 

which are extraordinarily dry. [Laughter.] 

But so essential to the taxpayers. 

When we get that answer, Ms. Condon, I can assure you I will 

try to understand it, and that Senator McCaskill will understand 

it. [Laughter.] 

Ms. CONDON. Noted, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Levin. 

I have a question here for Dr. Gansler. The Gansler Commission 

was asked to review the Army acquisition system for expeditionary 

operations; however, a number of the Commission’s findings appear 

to extend beyond the Army and beyond expeditionary contractors. 

For example, the report states, ‘‘Contracting, from requirements 

definition to contract management, is not an Army core competence. The Army has excellent dedicated people, but they are 

understaffed, overworked, undertrained, and undersupported, and, 

most importantly, undervalued.’’ 

Dr. Gansler, would you agree that many of the problems that you 

have identified extend beyond the Army and beyond expeditionary 

contracting? 

32

Dr. GANSLER. Very definitely. In fact, when I briefed Secretary 

Gates and his staff, including the Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretary (AT&L), and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary Gates did say, ‘‘Clearly this reflects a need much broader 

than just the Army.’’ Our recommendation, in terms of the DCMA, 

is outside of the Army, although the Army does contribute personnel to that. This is a general area that the DOD, and, particularly as we go more towards joint activities, will have to get involved with other areas, but I think our intent was clearly to look 

at the overall DOD needs. The Army is the responsible party here 

in Iraq/Afghanistan, and the Army has, I think, the immediate crying need. So, a lot of our recommendations were focused on the 

Army. But I think Secretary Gates intends to have this more 

broadly looked at by the Air Force and Navy, as well, and by OSD, 

as Senator Thune said, by the Under Secretary for Acquisition, 

Technology, and Logistics, for those areas related to him. This 

would include contracting policy, it would include the DCMA, and 

other cross-DOD activities, not just the Army. 

Senator AKAKA. Secretary Bolton and General Thompson, would 

you agree with Dr. Gansler’s assessment? 

Secretary BOLTON. I do agree, and I would also add that we’ve 

been looking at the Services, and obviously concentrating on the 

Army that this lack of expertise also extends to the oversight agencies. They are not immune. We depend upon the oversight, whether 

it’s an IG or an audit, to have that expertise. I will tell you that 

in the 30 years that I’ve been in this business, I’ve watched those 

organizations—and I worked very closely with them, and I admire 

the work that they do—we don’t always agree—that they, too, are 

lacking some expertise. Also, the defense finance folks, you need to 

look there, as well. We’re asking them to do a heck of a lot of work, 

and they’re under the same constraints, in terms of numbers of 

people and so forth—not necessarily in contracting, but just people 

able to process the paperwork. Why is that important to me? Because my contract team personnel do business with them to get 

money on contracts and to move things around. Without the people 

there to get the job done, it’s hard for us to do our work, as well. 

So, I would extend Dr. Gansler’s comments to look at the oversight, as well. 

Senator AKAKA. General Thompson? 

General THOMPSON. Sir, I also agree with Dr. Gansler’s statements. Like he mentioned in his testimony, contracting is a process. It’s not just the people that write the contracts, it’s a process 

that goes from the requirement all the way to the contract management, into the payment of the contractor, ultimately. So you have 

to value that entire process, because it is that entire process, if 

done right, that gets you the product or service that meets the requirement, and gets it at a fair price, which is what we all want 

to have happen, because we’re spending the taxpayers’ dollars. 

Senator AKAKA. Secretary Bolton and General Thompson, the 

Gansler Commission report states that most civilians working on 

contracting issues in Iraq were volunteers often with inadequate or 

wrong skill sets for the job at hand, and often getting their required contracting experience on the job as part of their deployment. The Commission recommends that qualified civilians who 

33

agree to deploy be provided enhanced career and job incentives. 

These include the elimination of an existing pay cap, tax-free status, and long-term medical care for injuries incurred in theater. 

To your knowledge, does the Secretary of the Army concur with 

this recommendation? Also, can we expect to see a legislative proposal from the DOD along these lines? 

Secretary BOLTON. With regard to the DOD, I’m not in a position 

to speak for DOD. For the Army, in our written testimony and 

what I’ve indicated thus far, the Secretary of the Army does support the recommendations. It’s now a question of how best to implement those, and then, of course, as I said earlier, how many of 

those will result in the request for legislation. That’s what we’re 

going through right now, and that’s what the Task Force is charged 

to do. 

Senator AKAKA. General Thompson? 

General THOMPSON. Sir, one of the things that we’re looking at 

is the specific recommendations made by Dr. Gansler that require 

legislative change. The Army has legislative change proposals that 

it has proposed, that it needs to work now with the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, and then work with the administration, before they submit them as administration proposals to change the 

current law. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Senator Thune. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to follow up on your question, because, Dr. Gansler, 

the Commission recommends, among other things, congressional 

action to improve incentives for Army civilian contracting personnel who volunteer to deploy for expeditionary contracting. In 

furtherance of that recommendation, the Commission recommends 

that the statutory caps on civilian compensation associated with 

contingency operations be waived completely. 

Beginning in 2006, Congress raised the statutory limit on overtime pay for civilian employees who work overseas in support of 

CENTCOM contingency operations. That current cap is $212,100. 

I guess I’d like to have you explain exactly what was intended by 

the Commission’s recommendation here, and if there was data or 

analysis that supports lifting all the applicable caps on civilian 

compensation in Title V. 

Dr. GANSLER. First let me comment on the cap point, which you 

properly pointed out has been lifted for Iraq. What we were proposing there on that particular issue was that there be some standby legislation so that the next expeditionary operation, we don’t 

have to wait to find out if Congress is going to waive it or not. 

When we ask for volunteers to go, will they know that, if they do 

what benefits they will receive. These people put in incredible 

hours. That was one of the things we heard from everybody, that 

they’re working two or three shifts, 7 days a week, individually, 

and they need to be compensated for that. We did hear, from a lot 

of the people, this point about the tax waiver, that the people—the 

military there, and the contractors—150,000–160,000 of them, all 

have their taxes waived, and these government civilians, who are 

also in harm’s way, are not getting that waiver. That just seemed 

to us wrong, from an ethics as well as a national security perspecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:33 May 12, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\42253.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
34

tive, because you want your best people to be there—as the Senator 

pointed out earlier, you want to have the very best people onsite, 

and you’re not going to get people to volunteer if you don’t recognize that this is a special situation—putting your life at stake. You 

clearly could be harmed. At least Congress ought to do things like 

make sure their life insurance is covered, make sure, if they have 

a need for long-term medical coverage, it has to be provided for, 

that if they, in fact, are putting themself at risk like that, they get 

proper compensation for it, because people on each side of them—

the military and the contractors—are getting it. It just doesn’t 

seem fair to me. 

Senator THUNE. I understand, too, Dr. Gansler, that the Commission is calling for Congress to address some of these recommendations for out-of-cycle action. I guess my question would be, can you 

give the subcommittee some guidance on which of the Commission’s recommendations are of the sense of urgency that we may 

want to undertake them out of cycle, and maybe to put more plainly—can you help us prioritize your recommendations for out-ofcycle action? 

Dr. GANSLER. We could certainly try to do that and come back 

to you with it. 

[The information referred to follows:]

In preparing my introductory remarks, I tried to highlight the five most critical 

actions by Congress:

1. Increased general officer billets for the Army and the Joint Organizations, in the contracting area; 

2. An increase in the contracting personnel, military and civilian; including those required for the increased role of DCMA; 

3. Increased incentives and rewards for civilian government contracting 

personnel who volunteer to go into the dangerous expeditionary operations; 

4. Funding flexibility for future operations; and 

5. Waiver of many special buying provisions when in an emergency environment.

While all five of these are critical, I would suggest that the first three are the 

most urgent.

Dr. GANSLER. We actually thought all of them were important, 

and that’s the reason——

Senator THUNE. Right. 

Dr. GANSLER.—we made those recommendations to you. I think 

the sooner that you can respond to these, the better. I think it’s important to recognize that the Department has to stand up for these 

first. They have to make the request, as you pointed out, to make 

the legislative requests, and recognize that they make some internal changes, and then Congress responds to those, as well. But I 

think the sooner that both the DOD and Congress can respond to 

this, the more it will show that, in fact, the overall organization, 

Congress and the DOD, care about this, that this is important, that 

it needs to be done, that we need to send the right message to the 

people. We have a lot of very hardworking people putting their 

lives at stake and not getting recognized for it—and not getting 

adequately supported. I think that’s wrong. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Senator Thune. 

Senator McCaskill. 

35

Senator MCCASKILL. Dr. Gansler, first let me recognize, and all 

the people at the table are some of these, that there are thousands 

of people trying to do this work well under very, very difficult circumstances, and there have been massive amounts of mistakes 

made, but not because there aren’t people out there trying. They 

just were completely overwhelmed. 

I know what my perspective is as to how this happened—a lack 

of recognition of the importance of this part of the mission, as opposed to the military mission; but what’s one of the things that is 

of concern to me is that 70 percent of the contracting personnel in 

Iraq and Kuwait are, in fact, Air Force, only 28 percent are Army, 

but yet, almost every open fraud investigation involves the Army. 

What is it within the training and culture in the Army that has 

caused this lopsidedness, in terms of that issue? What is it that we 

need to go back to the Service Academies, to—frankly, one of the 

things that I’m most concerned about is qualifications for promotion and whether or not you get demoted. I’m not aware of anyone who has lost a rank for failures under their watch that they 

weren’t directly responsible for, and that’s a problem. I’ve now 

spent enough time around people in uniform that what rank you 

hold and what rank you are trying to hold is, in some ways, the 

key to the kingdom, in terms of promotion and demotion, and yet, 

I don’t see any kind of accountability within the Army in that regard. 

Dr. GANSLER. Let me mention three points. I think the most important one of all, I would say, is that when you have a systemic 

problem, it’s often a question of, are you getting adequate leadership? Are the people who are in charge of this area getting the 

proper authority, getting the proper recognition? As I mentioned in 

my prepared remarks, that we went from five general officers with 

contracting experience in the Army to zero. We went, in the joint 

activities, also down from four positions to zero, and then one temporary one. I think there’s a clear need for, in the case here, of 

military leadership, and that’s the reason we emphasized that. 

We also recognize that there’s an important message that gets 

sent out here when the people look around and say, ‘‘Well, they’ve 

just eliminated all the general officers from contracting. I guess I’d 

better go into a different career path.’’ 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Dr. GANSLER. So, now the second point I guess I would make is 

the fact that one of the reasons I think the Air Force model is more 

successful in the case of contracting is, they start their people as 

second lieutenants in the contracting field. Secretary Bolton mentioned before, the number of years of experience matters. It clearly 

does. In the case of the Army, historically they have begun people 

in the career field after 7 or 8 years, so half of their career, in a 

sense, is gone before they begin to specialize in contracting. We recommended that the Army change that, that they begin as second 

lieutenants, but that they spend 2 or 3 years in a combat position 

so they understand the real Army, what the objectives are, how it 

works, get mud on their shoes, and so forth. So when they read or 

when they learn in classes that they’re contracting people for their 

whole career, they have a much greater cumulative experience in 

the contracting field. 

36

I think, in general, these are the reasons that I can look at answering your question, the Air Force has this long-term career, and 

they have had, in the past, more senior people in the contracting 

and acquisition field. They’ve been reducing that, too, though, so I 

don’t want to give them too much credit for that. But, on the other 

hand, I think that they recognize they need to make some improvements, themselves; but, I think if you look across—to answer your 

specific question, if you had people who were adequately trained 

and prepared, you probably wouldn’t see the number of cases of 

waste, fraud, and abuse. 

Now, what Secretary Bolton mentioned that I think is equally 

important, and that’s the third point I wanted to make—we should 

train as we fight. The majority of the people in the contracting field 

have not been trained to go into an expeditionary operation; they 

haven’t been trained to go out into a battlefield. They’ve been 

trained to worry about buying a tank or buying an airplane in the 

United States. When we do the exercises from the military combatant commander’s perspective, they should be worrying about the 

fact that 50 percent of their force are contractors, and they should 

be trained that way, as well. So, we have to change the whole 

Army, or the whole DOD, in this case, not just the contracting community, to recognize the importance of this career field to the overall effectiveness of our forces. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Do we need to begin having a Reserve 

corps? We’ve relied on the Reserves, we’ve relied on the National 

Guard in this conflict in Iraq at unprecedented levels, in terms of 

how we have utilized them in the field. Do we need to begin to 

have a special Reserve contract component of people who are 

trained and ready within the Reserves and within the National 

Guard to step into contracting oversight? 

General THOMPSON. Ma’am, let me take that question, and I’ll 

answer that one specifically. If I could, I’d like to come back to a 

couple of the points that Dr. Gansler made. 

The Army did not just begin to stand up a military contracting 

structure. We recognized the problem and began to put that structure in place back in 2005. About 70 percent of the structure that 

we’ve stood up, to date, is currently filled. That includes establishing noncommissioned officers—‘‘51 Charlies’’ is the specialty 

area. There are 70 of those noncommissioned officers today, because we looked at the success that the Air Force has had with 

noncommissioned officers involved in contracting, and they’re world 

class in what they do. 

Part of the structure that we’ve stood up—it’s not just Active 

component structure, it’s also National Guard and Reserve. I’m 

taking a very hard look right now—and one of my responsibilities 

as the acquisition career manager for the Army at the senior 

level—can we develop the expertise in contracting in the National 

Guard and the Reserves? Because of the skill set there, you almost 

have to do it on a full-time basis, and you can’t just do it part-time. 

So, what we’re looking very hard right now, with the structure that 

we’ve stood up already, is—how much of that Reserve component 

structure is full-time? I would not argue that it can be all in the 

Reserves. Like with most of our specialties, it’s a combination. But 

you can’t be level–2 certified in contracting unless you have certain 

37

coursework and education, but you also have to have 2 years of onhand, real-world experience doing contracting, and you can’t get 

that 38 days a year, or being mobilized a couple of months at a 

time. 

In the National Guard, for example, one of the things they’re 

looking at—and I think it’s pretty much the way they’re going to 

go—is, each one of these four-person contingency contracting teams 

will have a member on that team that’s a full-time employee that 

does contracting in that State that’s represented, but the other 

three members of that team will have to come from some other 

part of the Guard structure. So I have asked the Reserve components, both the U.S. Army Reserve and the National Guard, to look 

at how many of those positions in contracting need to be full time. 

Not all of them, but you need enough of those positions as full-time 

positions so they can get the expertise. Once they’re certified to a 

certain level, then they can go back to the part-time status and be 

mobilized when necessary. 

You mentioned a couple of points about the individuals—in the 

Army, in particular—involved in a lot of these investigations. A 

point I would make is, it’s not just people that do contracting, it’s 

contracting officer representatives, which, in many cases, are members of the operational force; it’s not just military, it’s civilian; so, 

it’s not just the contracting workforce. For those people that took 

advantage of opportunities because the proper internal controls 

weren’t there, the Criminal Investigation Command for the Army, 

and the audit agency is boring into those. There’s been about 20 

people indicted already, and I’m fairly confident—and, although I 

can’t speak for the investigative agencies, I’m just keeping track of 

what they’re doing—those people that violated their values and 

took advantage of the situation are being investigated, and where 

the investigation leads, they’ll be indicted and, I’m sure, prosecuted, and proper punishment given to them. 

We are looking at the point that Dr. Gansler made about earlier 

accessions. I do agree 100 percent that you can’t bring somebody 

in at the 8-year point as an officer, expect to get them world class 

in contracting, because then, all of a sudden, they’re at the 20- to 

25-year point. One of the things that we’re going to move out on 

is to move the accession point to earlier. Dr. Gansler’s recommendation about designating somebody as contracting, and then 

branch detailing them to an operational assignment, I think, is a 

good one. We’re looking at that. The other one we’re looking at is 

just to move the accession point from 8 years back to 4 or 5 years, 

because we, in the Army, believe strongly that it’s important to 

have that operational experience and that—get your boots muddy, 

as they say, because when you talk to the senior-level folks involved in contracting, the best ones involved in contracting have a 

lot of operational experience. But bringing that accession point 

back earlier will give us another 4 or 5 years to get those officers, 

and now noncommissioned officers, properly trained so we can use 

them. 

That’s the last point I would want to make. 

Dr. GANSLER. Actually, I’d point out that only about 20 percent 

of the cases that have been looked at for the fraud examples are 

38

of the contracting people; the rest—the 80 percent—come from 

other areas. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right, and I’m aware of that. I also think 

that if you talk to the people on the ground, there’s no question 

that these CORs many times feel like they’re the ones that got the 

short straw. There’s no sense that the CORs in these units have 

the kind of pride and passion they need to have for that job, because it’s almost seen as, ‘‘It’s a short-term duty. If you’re lucky, 

you won’t have to do it long. If you’re lucky, it’s pro forma, you just 

have to sign off on some forms.’’ Clearly, there has not been the 

training about the need for being aggressive and being committed 

in that vital, vital—because most of this is, in fact—and you have 

the problem with the definitization at the front end, and in the 

competitiveness at the front end—but so much of this is day-to-day 

oversight of that contract, and if you don’t get those CORs to the 

point that they are fully trained and passionate about their work, 

and not that they’re there for a short stop along the way, and, if 

they’re lucky, they’ll only have to do it for 9 months until the other 

sucker has to come in and be the COR. This is not a position that 

is looked up to within these units. I know you all know this. But 

it’s something the Army really needs to grasp. 

General THOMPSON. Those people that are CORs have to be valued, because it’s a very important function. 

Senator MCCASKILL. They are big deals. They need to be treated 

that way. 

General THOMPSON. Right. They are watching after taxpayers’ 

dollars, and the simple missive I give to everybody I talk to about 

taxpayers’ dollars is: it would be kind of like you’re writing it out 

of your checkbook. We’ve trained about 4,500 CORs here over the 

last few months, but it’s not just training them. You have to train 

them, they have to value that assignment, and, once you train 

them, they have to be the ones actually doing it when they get over 

there. You can’t designate somebody as a COR when they’re getting 

ready to deploy, and then change that person out when they get 

over there. There has to be a consistency. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That’s happening all the time. 

General THOMPSON. Yes, ma’am. We recognize that. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Senator McCaskill. 

Let me ask this of Dr. Gansler. Last February, I understand that the Army awarded a $225 million planning and support contract 

for the LOGCAP IV contract. Under that contract, the support contractor will be responsible for developing scopes of work, preparing 

independent cost estimates, analyzing the performance of contractor costs, and measuring contractor performance. 

Dr. Gansler, in your view, should these functions be performed 

by a contractor or by government personnel? 

Dr. GANSLER. My impression of that—some of those functions 

could be done by the government, and maybe even should be done. 

On the other hand, what we found was—for example, you mentioned the pricing of contracts. There was not a single person in 

theater who was doing pricing. So, if you have no current people 

that you can assign to it, having contractors do it on a third-party 

basis, which is what this planning contract is, it’s an independent 

third party looking at pricing, for example, they will estimate the 

39

price, and then the contractor would estimate the price. The combination of that and what they had planned for the LOGCAP IV, 

of having competition on each of these tasks—I think the combination of those two would be a lot better than what we now have. A 

lot of the functions that you listed could be done, and maybe should 

be done, by government employees; but, if there aren’t any—and if 

we don’t get permission to increase the numbers, we’re not going 

to have any—and if we keep it as a volunteer basis, you’re not 

going to get many to volunteer under the current conditions, either—then we are going to have to use this third-party contractor 

operation, and I think that’s far preferable than not having it. 

Senator AKAKA. Secretary Bolton and General Thompson, I 

would like your comment on Dr. Gansler’s comments here, and 

also, I want to ask you, do you believe the Army should have the 

capability of planning these functions itself? If they do, how long 

do you think it will take for the Army to develop this capability? 

Secretary BOLTON. First of all, I do agree with Dr. Gansler’s comments. The LOGCAP, and now we’re into LOGCAP IV—the current 

contract is LOGCAP III, and as soon as we move on to LOGCAP 

IV, we’ll do that, which offers more competition, it does have a 

planning part to it, and a contractor to do that. 

We must remember how we got into this boat. This is not new. 

We go back to the 1980s and look at what the military was asked 

to do, which is basically to take a look at the things that you are 

doing in the military—some of those, I think, Senator McCaskill 

mentioned earlier, with your father peeling potatoes—can somebody else do that? Can somebody in the commercial or civilian contracting parts of our country do that for us—services-type contracts? So, throughout the 1980s and then in the 1990s, that’s what 

we did. Right now, if we were to replace all of the LOGCAP folks 

over there, we’d need three times the number of folks. You have 

about 50,000 or so LOGCAP contractors over there. I’d need about 

120,000 to 150,000 soldiers. Why? Because you would need about 

50,000 on the ground to do the work; you would need 50,000 who 

were training to go there, and you have 50,000 coming out on a rotation. So, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it was our task to give 

to the civilian sector all the work that we could, and this was part 

of it. 

We did not expect a war such as this, this particular LOGCAP. The previous LOGCAP, I think we did $50-some-odd-million on it, 

total. This one obviously is into the billions, because it expanded 

so quickly. Then, when we finally had an opportunity to compete 

it, we did. 

So, I agree with the comments that Dr. Gansler has on this. I 

would love to be able to do this all ourselves. Right now, I don’t 

see that as being a near-term possibility. 

Senator AKAKA. General Thompson? 

General THOMPSON. Senator, I agree with the comments that 

have been made. The one thing that I would add to that is, to develop that expertise, again, it’s going to take about 5 years to get 

the pricing piece, because it’s part of the contracting process, because the people we have today that do pricing are very, very few. 

The pricing is, for the most part, not done overseas, because there 

aren’t the people overseas to do that. So, again, it’s one of those: 

40

You’re going to have to grow the expertise, and it’s going to take 

us 5 years or more to be able to build that expertise to a sufficient 

level. 

Senator AKAKA. Senator Thune. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just by way of wrap-up—I don’t have any more questions to ask, 

but I do want to thank you all for your service. Secretary Bolton, 

best of luck to you in your future endeavors 

I would say, the bottom line, I think, in all this is making sure 

that the warfighter obtains the necessary required expeditionary 

contract capability in a timely way. I appreciate the work that you, 

Dr. Gansler, and the Commission have done. It was necessarily 

Army-centric, because that was your mission, as, I think, chartered 

by Secretary Geren. 

But, I would simply add that—and then come back to a point I 

made earlier, and I know you contemplated some of this in your 

report—but the report also establishes that the Army doesn’t have 

an organic core competency in contracting, and some of the other 

Services are better at it. Since much of what we’re going to be 

doing in the future is joint and expeditionary, it seems to me at 

least that cultivating contracting core competencies in a joint way 

makes a lot of sense. So, I would just urge you all, as you move 

forward, to look at how that might be incorporated. 

Again, I thank you very much for your testimony and for your 

work. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much, Senator Thune. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I certainly agree with Senator Thune’s comments about the jointness of this and the necessity for jointness, 

and how important that is, moving forward. I know sometimes 

that’s a challenge. 

I also want to close with thanking all of you for your commitment, and certainly your service, Secretary Bolton. 

I also want to just make one comment about the culture. I think 

it’s so important that, at the very top of the Army, there is a culture that this is really important. I think we have to be honest that 

that’s part of the problem. 

In Kuwait, when I was visiting with the people there that were 

involved in contracting, one of the generals actually said to me, ‘‘I 

don’t care whether it costs $10 billion or $15 billion, I wanted the 

ice cream in the mess hall yesterday.’’ Now, no wonder the CORs 

don’t think their job is that important. If that’s the kind of messaging that’s going on at the very top, it is very hard for it to filter 

down to where it matters that this is really important. 

So, to whatever extent—your service, Dr. Gansler, on this Commission, obviously your service, Secretary Bolton, and I have a feeling that the War Contracting Commission is part of the National 

Defense Authorization Act Conference Report, I believe it will become active next year. I think you’ll probably spend some time in 

front of that Commission over the next 2 years. As we move forward, I think we have to recognize that if the generals at the top 

don’t communicate clearly—because when he said that to me, there 

were a room full of soldiers in the room that did this work—that 

41

is not the message we need to be sending, and that is, in fact, the 

message that brings about the kind of abuses that we’ve seen. I 

think we need to be honest about that and continue to work on it, 

as I know all of you will, as committed professionals in this area. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Senator McCaskill. 

Let me close by saying thank you to all of you, Dr. Gansler, Secretary Bolton, General Thompson, and Ms. Condon. Thank you also 

for your service to our country. I want to particularly wish Secretary Bolton well and thank you, again, for your service to our 

country. 

What we’ve heard today and what we’ve been inquiring about 

really points out great, in a way, misconnection in our work here 

in trying to provide what our troops need. For me, I’m looking 

down the road to a point where we will have—whether it’s jointly—

a command that could be calling this, could be called, in this case—

in our case today—the Army Contracting Command, but a group 

of people who would be dedicated to contracting and working in 

contracting both with the Active Duty people, as well as civilians. 

We need to structure it so that we can do this as a whole and not 

be splintered, as we are now. 

I want you to know that this subcommittee is looking at this as 

a problem that our country needs to correct. We’ve heard from you 

to say that it will take years for us to try to correct this. I hope 

that that’s not true, I hope we can do it sooner than that. We’ll certainly press for that effort and look forward to your cooperation, as 

well, and the committee’s cooperation in doing that. 

So, thank you very much for your testimony, and we wish you 

all well. 

The hearing is adjourned.

[The report ‘‘Urgent Reform Required: Army Expeditionary Contracting’’ follows:] 

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[Question for the record with answer supplied follows:]

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY SENATOR DANIEL K. AKAKA

ARMY CONTRACTORS

1. Senator AKAKA. Secretary Bolton, General Thompson, and Ms. Condon, I asked 

Dr. Gansler during the hearing if the Army should be using contractors to develop 

scopes of work, preparing independent government cost estimates, analyzing the 

performance of contractor costs, and measuring contractor performance. He indicated that he thought it was appropriate, even necessary, given that there was nobody available in theater to do the work. 

The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) state that ‘‘The agency head or a designee shall prescribe procedures for . . . ensuring that no purchase request is initiated or contract entered into that would result in the performance of an inherently 

governmental function by a contractor and that all contracts or orders are adequately managed so as to ensure effective official control over contract or order performance.’’ The FAR further states that ‘‘Inherently governmental function’’ means, 

as a matter of policy, a function that is so intimately related to the public interest 

as to mandate performance by government employees. This definition is a policy determination, not a legal determination. An inherently governmental function includes activities that require either the exercise of discretion in applying government authority, or the making of value judgments in making decisions for the Government. 

Please explain how the Army is ensuring that it is meeting the requirements of 

the FAR when using contractors to perform the above functions, which appear to 

be ‘‘inherently governmental functions.’’ How long would it take to replace the contractor with government staff to perform these functions, and is it the Army’s plan 

to do so? 

Secretary BOLTON, General THOMPSON, and Ms. CONDON. The functions identified 

in your question (i.e., developing scopes of work, preparing independent government 

cost estimate, analyzing the performance of contractor costs, and measuring contractor performance) are normally not inherently governmental functions. If it is 

necessary to contract for these functions, safeguards are used to address any potential organizational conflicts of interest. We recognize that in certain circumstances 

these tasks may, however, approach being inherently governmental because of the 

nature of the function, the manner in which the contractor performs the contract, 

or the manner in which the Government administers contractor performance. This 

analysis is best performed by the requiring activity since they have knowledge of 

how the contract will be performed and administered. 

Since February 23, 2006, the Secretary of the Army has required senior leaders 

to be responsible for the review of contract requirements. Since February 2, 2007, 

the Secretary of the Army has encouraged in-sourcing these kinds of tasks where 

appropriate, especially when necessary to maintain proper command and control of 

Army core competencies. The Secretary of the Army further clarified on September 

4, 2007, that we must transform to meet enduring requirements in our core competencies with military and civilian employees, and only use contractors for surge 

and specialized needs. 

Finally, effective January 2008, the Department of Defense (DOD) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Supplement was amended to address procedures for the 

preparation of the written determination required by FAR 7.503(e), that none of the 

functions to be performed by contract are inherently governmental. The new rule 

requires DOD personnel to prepare the determination using DOD Instruction 

1100.22, Guidance for Determining Workforce Mix, and to also include a determination that none of the functions to be performed are exempt from private sector performance, as addressed in DOD Instruction 1100.22. Determining the length of time 

needed to rebalance the mix between contractors performing these tasks and an organic workforce requires an assessment of the scope of such tasks performed by contractors in comparison to existing in-house capability. The Army is starting to use 

a contractor inventory similar to that which would be required by the pending National Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2008 to support this ongoing analysis.

[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

Æ