Warfighter Support: DOD Needs Strategic Outcome-Related Goals and Visibility over Its Counter-IED Efforts
Released: 2012-02-22T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Created by the Deputy Secretary of Defense in January 2006, JIEDDO is responsible for leading, advocating, and coordinating all DOD actions in support of the combatant commanders’ and their respective joint task forces’ efforts to defeat IEDs as weapons of strategic influence. Prior DOD efforts to defeat IEDs included various process teams and task forces. For example, DOD established the Joint IED Defeat Task Force in June 2005 for which the Army provided primary administrative support. This task force replaced the Army IED Task Force, the Joint IED Task Force, and the Under Secretary of Defense, Force Protection Working Group. To focus all of DOD’s efforts and minimize duplication, DOD published a new counter-IED policy in February 2006 through DOD Directive 2000.19E, which changed the name of the Joint IED Defeat Task Force to JIEDDO and established it as a joint entity and jointly staffed organization within DOD, reporting directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The directive states that JIEDDO shall “focus” (i.e., lead, advocate, and coordinate) all DOD actions in support of the Combatant Commanders’ and their respective Joint Task Forces’ efforts to defeat IEDs as “weapons of strategic influence.”

GAO, Defense Management: More Transparency Needed over the Financial and Human Capital Operations of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, GAO-08-342 (Washington D.C.: Mar. 6, 2008). controls. DOD and JIEDDO agreed with our recommendations and have taken actions in response.

DOD Has Not Provided a Results- Oriented Strategic Plan to Manage Its Counter-IED Efforts

Beginning in February 2006, JIEDDO has been responsible for developing DOD’s IED defeat strategic plan for countering the IED threat, but its strategic-planning actions have not followed leading strategic management practices, or have since been discontinued. In March 2007, we found that JIEDDO had not developed a strategic plan and as a result could not assess whether it was making the right investment decisions or whether it had effectively organized itself to meet its mission. We recommended that the Secretary of Defense require the Director of JIEDDO, in developing DOD’s IED defeat strategic plan, to clearly articulate JIEDDO’s mission and specify goals, objectives, and measures of effectiveness. JIEDDO fully concurred with our recommendations and was working to complete a strategic plan when we issued this report, and in September 2007, JIEDDO completed its DOD- wide counter-IED strategic plan. However, JIEDDO’s 2007 strategic plan did not contain a means of measuring its performance outcomes, which is a leading strategic management practice. Subsequent JIEDDO strategic- planning efforts also did not follow leading strategic management practices or have been discontinued. For example, JIEDDO’s 2009–2010 strategic plan contained performance measures, but JIEDDO discontinued using these measures because they determined that the data from these measures were not relevant to the organization’s goals. We have previously reported that good strategic planning helps organizations (1) make the key decisions that will drive their actions, (2) measure the effectiveness of their actions to achieve intended results, and (3) if not achieving intended results, have the data to determine modifications needed to achieve intended results—all attributes of a plan that helps maximize organizational resources. Many of JIEDDO’s plans contained output measures such as the percentage of initiatives for which JIEDDO completes operational assessments or the percentage of counter-IED initiatives that were adopted by one of the Military Services. While collecting outputs is an important initial step in measuring progress, they do not provide information about progress toward achieving JIEDDO’s mission as outcome measures would.

Since 2006, JIEDDO has made several attempts to develop a counter- IED strategic plan including its 2007 and 2009–2010 strategic plans, which in the case of the 2007 plan, included elements for guiding DOD subordinate organizations and the military services involved with counter- IEDs in developing their own counter-IED planning. However, those plans did not have outcome-related goals specific enough for JIEDDO and these organizations to be able to develop enduring measures of effectiveness that inform DOD whether its counter-IED mission is being met. As shown in figure 1, we identified 17 key actions or triggering events applicable to DOD that were to either produce counter-IED strategic plans for the department or further develop the strategic plans. However, the 17 actions have either been discontinued or did not satisfy key strategic-management-planning practices, including developing results-oriented strategic goals, performance measures, and the adjustment of plans or intended actions based on the results of these measures. For some of the 17 actions and events, we found that while JIEDDO had made efforts to satisfy leading strategic management practices, these efforts fell short of developing results-oriented goals and performance measures that link with DOD’s counter-IED mission. We assessed some efforts as partially fulfilling strategic management practices because developing output measures is a step toward developing outcome measures, and measuring individual initiatives contributes toward the overall counter-IED effort. However, JIEDDO has not expanded its assessments beyond these individual efforts and determined how these efforts, overall, help to achieve DOD’s counter-IED mission.

In early January 2012, JIEDDO issued its counter-IED strategic plan for 2012–2016, which established five principal goals for JIEDDO with three to six supporting objectives for each goal. This plan did not specify what actions JIEDDO planned to take to achieve these goals. On January 19, 2012, JIEDDO augmented its strategic plan by issuing an annex detailing numerous actions to achieve these objectives, and establishing 230 separate metrics that JIEDDO expects will provide the means of assessing its progress. In addition, JIEDDO is planning to begin, in March 2012, quarterly internal reviews to assess progress and make adjustments to its counter-IED efforts accordingly. Such action has not been a step JIEDDO has included in its past efforts. We see good potential in JIEDDO’s strategic plan; however, because the portion of the plan relevant to our recommendations was issued on January 19, 2012— shortly before issuance of this report—we did not evaluate the plan and have not therefore assessed the extent to which this new plan will follow leading strategic management practices and provide results-oriented strategic goals and sufficient performance metrics for JIEDDO. Further, according to JIEDDO officials, the strategic plan applies only to counter- IED efforts managed by JIEDDO and does not apply to all other counter- IED efforts departmentwide. Consequently, successful implementation of JIEDDO’s strategic plan alone will not provide the means necessary for determining the effectiveness of all counter-IED efforts across DOD. According to JIEDDO officials, DOD will produce a departmentwide counter-IED strategic plan in the future, but there is no specified timeline for issuance of this plan.

As JIEDDO moves forward to implement its counter-IED strategic plan, and DOD develops a departmentwide counter-IED strategic plan, DOD will continue to face difficulty in developing measures of effectiveness, if it does not have results-oriented strategic goals to accompany DOD’s general counter-IED mission statement. The department has identified eliminating IEDs as a weapon of strategic influence as the overarching mission of its counter-IED programs, but has not translated this mission into actionable goals and objectives. Without actionable goals and objectives established by DOD, JIEDDO, and other DOD components cannot tie individual performance measures to DOD’s desired outcomes. As a result, DOD and external stakeholders are left without a comprehensive, data-driven assessment as to whether DOD’s counter- IED efforts are achieving DOD’s mission. Furthermore, without a means to measure the success of JIEDDO’s efforts in achieving DOD’s counter- IED mission, JIEDDO’s basis for determining how to invest its resources among its three lines of organizational effort—to attack the network, defeat the device, and train the force—is limited. While JIEDDO has established procedures to assess counter-IED gaps and prioritize and manage its requirements and individual investments—including coordinating and collaborating with various DOD entities—to rapidly pursue these critical lines of effort, JIEDDO and DOD are not informed about the overall effectiveness of their counter-IED efforts and use of resources as they relate to DOD’s mission.

Lastly, JIEDDO has not had a completed, fully developed strategic plan until recently, with long-term strategic goals that informed incoming directors about which actions have taken place and which must be continued in order to maintain continuous progress toward achieving long-term goals. Having such a strategic plan would have benefitted JIEDDO leadership as JIEDDO’s directors changed four times over the 6 years JIEDDO has existed (see fig. 1). Without this framework, new strategic-planning efforts have been initiated under each of these directors to improve the organization and manage counter-IED support— efforts that contributed in varying degrees to strategic management but, as discussed above, were not implemented or were discontinued in many instances. Now that JIEDDO has completed its strategic plan, it should work to ensure that implementation helps provide continuity for the organization as JIEDDO leadership changes in the future.

DOD Has Some Visibility over Counter-IED Initiatives but Does Not Have a Comprehensive Listing of All DOD Counter-IED Initiatives

A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 repealed certain quarterly reporting requirements. See Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 1062(d)(5) (2011). However, reporting requirements for other information related to counter IED efforts may remain. comprehensive list of counter-IED efforts that would provide a better basis for determining key efforts to report to Congress.

Technology Matrix Database: In 2009, DOD developed this database through JIEDDO in response to our recommendation to establish a comprehensive counter-IED database, expending a total of $225,000. JIEDDO requested sponsorship from DOD Deputy Director for Research and Engineering to make this database an official repository of DOD technology information for counter-IED efforts, and require full participation of all DOD entities. However, the database was not fully developed in its concept, structure, and procedures. Thus, the Research and Engineering officials did not require all organizations involved in developing counter-IED solutions to use this database until these shortcomings were addressed. Without this requirement from Research and Engineering, JIEDDO concluded that the database could not provide comprehensive counter-IED information as intended, and JIEDDO discontinued using this database for this purpose in early 2010 and looked to other ongoing alternatives to provide this capability.

Tripwire Analytical Capability (TAC): JIEDDO acquired and further developed this system in 2009 for intelligence querying purposes but also explored this system for possible use in collecting comprehensive data on DOD’s counter-IED initiatives managed by the military services and other DOD agencies outside of JIEDDO, automatically through programmed computer interfaces. JIEDDO considered using this data to populate a JIEDDO counter-IED database. However, according to JIEDDO officials, JIEDDO subsequently determined that less expensive commercially available alternatives were available and discontinued its exploration of TAC in May 2011 for collecting DOD counter-IED data. At the time JIEDDO ceased considering TAC for use in collecting data on DOD’s counter-IED initiatives, JIEDDO had not expended any additional funds on TAC specifically for this purpose.

JIEDDO is currently developing a new JIEDDO-wide information technology architecture and plans to develop a database for counter-IED efforts across DOD as part of this new architecture. This effort is in the conceptualization stage, and JIEDDO officials do not anticipate completion before the end of fiscal year 2012. Further JIEDDO does not have an implementation plan that includes a detailed timeline with milestones, a key management practice, to help track its progress in achieving this goal.

JIEDDO’s expenditure tracking system, does not differentiate between expenditures it makes that constitute overhead and infrastructure and expenditures it makes that JIEDDO considers to be separate, stand alone counter-IED initiatives. initiatives, and therefore, when JIEDDO began implementation of this process in May 2011, it had to review one by one its 887 funds tracking system numbers to separate its stand-alone counter-IED initiatives from overhead. JIEDDO completed this review June 17, 2011, and concluded that 223, or approximately 25 percent, of JIEDDO’s 887 expenditure- tracking-system control numbers were currently active stand-alone counter-IED initiatives. While this list could provide JIEDDO and external stakeholders with a comprehensive inventory of active JIEDDO- funded counter-IED initiatives, it is incomplete because it does not identify or separate out inactive stand-alone counter-IED initiatives from administrative overhead expenditures. According to JIEDDO officials, JIEDDO could produce a comprehensive list of its counter-IED initiatives in a matter of 2 to 4 days, but had not done so as of December 15, 2011. Further, if JIEDDO did produce such a list, it would represent one point in time and would not provide a comprehensive DOD-wide database of counter-IED efforts because it would not include counter-IED efforts funded and managed by other DOD components independently of JIEDDO.

GAO, Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue GAO-11-318SP (Washington D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011). available on the six initiatives are classified, the efforts exhibit a range of different approaches regarding physical size, weight, and cost, and data show that the various DOD components involved have spent about $104 million collectively on these efforts to date. However, given the lack of a DOD-wide counter-IED database, there could be more directed energy efforts that we have not identified. Moreover, concerns regarding the fragmentation and duplication in DOD’s directed energy counter-IED efforts have risen to the highest levels within the warfighter community. Specifically, the commander of U.S. Central Command, in August 2011, conveyed concern regarding issues including apparent “duplicity of effort” in directed energy technology with organizations (in DOD) working different solutions. The correspondence called for coordination and cooperation by DOD on its directed energy efforts to develop a directed energy system that works in theater as quickly as possible given that the development has been under way since 2008. In response, in August 2011, JIEDDO, as DOD’s coordinating agency for these efforts, developed a plan and, in September 2011, brought various service program offices together to develop a solution as soon as possible. According to JIEDDO officials, the six systems will continue in development through fiscal year 2012, at which point, JIEDDO will determine which of the systems best satisfies U.S. Central Command’s requirement. While this new approach may eliminate future unnecessary duplication of effort, earlier coordination and better visibility could have prevented duplication that may have occurred up to this point. According to JIEDDO officials, the level of concern expressed and the fact that the concern was expressed in writing resulted in JIEDDO being able to secure the cooperation needed by the various organizations working different directed energy solutions to coordinate in this instance. However, this is a unique occurrence because, according to JIEDDO officials, JIEDDO does not have the authority to direct—i.e., compel— various DOD organizations that may be working on overlapping technologies or efforts to reach consensus regarding selection among competing alternatives. Therefore, JIEDDO has not always been successful in securing the cooperation of the services to coordinate on counter-IED efforts.

Radio Frequency Jamming Systems: The Army and Navy continue to pursue separate developments of counter-IED jamming systems, which provide a limited radius of protection to prevent IEDs from being triggered by an enemy’s radio signals. In 2007, DOD established the Navy as single manager and executive agent for ground-based jamming. Under DOD Directive 5101.14, military services may conduct ground-based jammer research and development to satisfy military service-unique requirements if the requirements are coordinated before initiation with the DOD’s single manager for jammers and, for any system or system modifications resulting from such efforts, operational technical characteristics and logistics plans are approved by the single manager. The Navy has developed a standard technology and system for ground-based jamming called JCREW I1B1, which DOD has designated as the ground-based jamming program for the entire Department. However, the Army has continued to develop its own ground-based jamming system called Duke. According to Navy officials, in 2010, the Army continued to develop new technology for insertion into its Duke system—expected to cost about $1.062 billion when completed and installed—without notifying and coordinating with the Navy as DOD’s single manager for ground-based jammer technology. According to Army officials, the Army is pursuing development of its own system because it intends to expand the use of this technology for purposes other than countering IEDs such as jamming enemy command, control, and communication systems. However, according to Navy officials, the CREW system’s technology has the flexibility and capacity to expand and provide the same additional functions as the Army plans for its Duke system. Moreover, according to Navy officials, the Navy’s system is further along in its development. Because the Navy and Army are pursuing separate jamming systems, it is not clear if DOD is taking the most cost-effective approach. While, according to JIEDDO officials, the Office of Secretary of Defense was considering how to resolve this issue, a decision had not been made before this report was completed. Regardless of the final outcome however, a more coordinated approach early in the process when initiating programs of this magnitude could prevent unnecessary duplication in costs and effort.

Electronic Data Collection Systems: According to JIEDDO officials, JIEDDO has funded the development and support of approximately 70 electronic data collection and analysis tools that overlap to some degree because they include capabilities to collect, analyze, and store data to help the warfighter combat the IED threat. Although JIEDDO recently reported that it could not verify total funding for its information technology investments, GAO determined through a review of DOD financial records that DOD has expended at least $184 million collectively on information technology development for its data collection and analysis tools. According to JIEDDO officials, JIEDDO is aware of the redundancy within these electronic tools. In April 2011, the JIEDDO Deputy Director for Information Management raised the issue of redundancy in JIEDDO’s information technology systems including its counter-IED data collection and analysis systems and tools. Consequently, since April 2011, JIEDDO has worked to eliminate overlapping information-technology capabilities where feasible including among the approximately 70 analytical tools JIEDDO has funded and developed for use in countering IED networks. For example, on July 1, 2011, JIEDDO discontinued funding for one of these initiatives—Tripwire Analytical Capability (TAC)—citing as reasons TAC’s limited purpose, high cost, and duplicative capabilities. However, in making the decision to discontinue TAC yet continue operating the other data collection and analysis tools, JIEDDO had not compared and quantified all of the potential options to streamline or consolidate these tools to create a single collective system that includes extracting data on counter-IED efforts across DOD. As a result, JIEDDO cannot be certain it is pursuing the most advantageous approach for collecting, analyzing, storing, and using available data for combating the IED threat. Further, although JIEDDO has discontinued funding TAC, the Defense Intelligence Agency is continuing to develop the tool for its own use, resulting in the potential for DOD-wide duplication between TAC and JIEDDO’s other data collection and analysis tools.

Conclusions

Six years after DOD established JIEDDO as its coordinating agency to lead, advocate, and coordinate responses to the IED threat across the department, DOD continues to lack comprehensive visibility of its counter- IED expenditures and investments, including those from JIEDDO, the military services, and relevant DOD agencies. The absence of a strategic plan with outcome-oriented goals and visibility over DOD’s counter-IED efforts are recurring themes that we have identified in prior reports as affecting JIEDDO’s ability to manage DOD’s efforts effectively and efficiently. JIEDDO has demonstrated progress in addressing previously raised issues—by developing a formal, more rigorous internal control system, and in issuing a 2012–2016 strategic plan for the management of JIEDDO’s counter-IED efforts—but these actions have not fully addressed the issues we have raised in this report. Specifically, DOD has not implemented adequate actions to (1) provide a comprehensive plan to ensure that all DOD counter-IED efforts are strategically managed in order to achieve its goal to defeat IEDs as a weapon of strategic influence, and (2) comprehensively list all DOD-wide counter-IED initiatives in a database that provides internal and external parties with visibility into the department’s counter-IED efforts. Without a comprehensive plan and listing of its counter-IED initiatives, DOD continues to risk fragmentation, overlap, and duplication in its counter-IED efforts, such as those identified in this report, as well as lack the ability to prioritize projects within future budget levels. Given the limited applicability of JIEDDO’s recently issued strategic plan and the limited progress JIEDDO has made in implementing our prior recommendation regarding developing a comprehensive listing of DOD-wide efforts, it is critical that DOD places greater focus and emphasis on the actions it takes in addressing these issues. As the nation addresses fiscal challenges, and DOD is directed to identify efficiencies, it will need to reduce and eliminate unnecessary duplicative counter-IED initiatives. We therefore reiterate our prior recommendation that the Secretary of Defense direct the military services to work with JIEDDO to develop a database for all DOD’s counter-IED initiatives.

Recommendations for Executive Action

In addition to the prior recommendation reiterated above that remains open, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who is responsible for direction and control of JIEDDO, to take the following four actions:

Define outcome-related strategic goals associated with DOD’s counter-IED mission to enable the development of measures of effectiveness that will help to determine progress of DOD’s counter- IED efforts.

Assess JIEDDO’s recently completed strategic plan and its implementation to ensure that it incorporates outcome-related strategic goals, includes sufficient measures of effectiveness to gauge progress, and uses the data collected from these metrics to adjust its counter- IED efforts, as needed.

Develop an implementation plan for the establishment of DOD’s counter- IED database including a detailed timeline with milestones to help achieve this goal.

Develop a process to use DOD’s counter-IED database once it is established to identify and compare all counter-IED initiatives and activities, to enable program monitoring, and reduce any duplication, overlap, and fragmentation among counter-IED initiatives.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with the third of our four recommendations—to develop an implementation plan for the establishment of DOD’s counter-IED database—and did not concur with the other three. DOD’s written comments are included in appendix II. DOD also provided technical comments that we have incorporated into this report where appropriate.

In disagreeing with our first recommendation for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to define outcome-related strategic goals associated with DOD’s counter-IED mission to enable the development of measures of effectiveness that will help to determine progress of DOD’s counter-IED efforts, the department stated that the JIEDDO Director has accomplished this task by issuing its 2012–2016 counter-IED strategic plan in January 2012. While we agree that the recent issuance of JIEDDO’s plan is a positive development, it does not fully address our recommendation because the plan does not apply to all counter-IED efforts departmentwide. According to JIEDDO officials, the plan applies to the management of JIEDDO counter-IED efforts only and has not been adopted as DOD’s strategic plan for managing all of its counter-IED expenditures and investments from the military services and relevant DOD agencies. Therefore, JIEDDO’s strategic goals do not satisfy the need for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to define outcome-related strategic goals for the department taken as a whole, and we believe our recommendation remains valid.

In disagreeing with our second recommendation for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to document and assess JIEDDO’s strategic plan to ensure that it incorporates outcome-related strategic goals, includes sufficient measures of effectiveness to gauge progress, and uses the data collected from these metrics to adjust its counter-IED efforts, as needed, the department stated that JIEDDO has established outcome-related strategic goals and measures of effectiveness in its January 2012 strategic plan and related implementation plan. DOD further stated that in March 2012 JIEDDO will begin quarterly internal reviews to assess progress against its goals and make adjustments to its counter-IED efforts. Completion of JIEDDO’s strategic plan is a positive step; however, because the portion of the plan relevant to our prior recommendations— the annex containing measures of effectiveness, timelines, and goals— was issued on January 19, 2012, we were unable to evaluate the plan before issuance of this report and therefore cannot comment on its adequacy relative to our recommendations. However, JIEDDO’s numerous prior strategic-planning actions have not followed leading strategic management practices, or have been discontinued. Therefore, JIEDDO’s recently completed counter-IED strategic plan and plans for internal quarterly reviews alone do not negate the need for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to assess the adequacy of JIEDDO’s strategic plan and its implementation, and we believe our recommendation remains valid. However, we modified the language in our recommendation to reflect the fact that JIEDDO has now recently issued a strategic plan and to clarify that the remaining action needed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense is to assess its adequacy and implementation.

In concurring with our third recommendation for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to develop an implementation plan for the establishment of DOD’s counter- IED database, DOD stated that DOD Directive 2000.19E is currently being revised to create a requirement for Combatant Commands, military services, and DOD agencies to report counter-IED initiatives to JIEDDO. According to DOD, this step will enable JIEDDO to develop a database for all DOD counter-IED initiatives. We agree that establishing this requirement should help JIEDDO’s counter-IED database development; however, according to JIEDDO officials, DOD Directive 2000.19E has been under revision for 2 years without DOD issuing a new directive. Therefore, it is critical that DOD complete this task as soon as possible to enable JIEDDO to develop its planned counter-IED database as described in DOD’s comments.

In disagreeing with our fourth recommendation for the Deputy Secretary of Defense to develop a means to identify and reduce any duplication, overlap, and fragmentation among counter-IED initiatives, DOD stated that it had existing processes and organizations including JIEDDO and its Senior Integration Group to facilitate coordination and collaboration with the military services and across DOD, which would address this recommendation. We agree that existing DOD processes such as JIEDDO’s Capabilities Development Process and DOD’s Senior Integration Group prioritization process can be helpful in coordinating DOD’s counter-IED efforts. However, the effectiveness of DOD’s existing coordination and collaboration processes has been limited given that these processes did not prevent the issues of potential duplication we identified in this report. For example, in the case of DOD’s directed energy counter-IED efforts where DOD has collectively expended $104 million, the processes cited by DOD in its response did not identify and resolve the fragmentation and potential duplication present in these efforts. As a result, the commander of U.S. Central Command, as mentioned previously, protested in writing to DOD officials about potential duplication of efforts. Without an adequate process to use DOD’s counter- IED database, once it is developed, DOD will continue to lack assurance that it is identifying and addressing instances of potential duplication before making significant investments. In finalizing our report, we modified the wording of our recommendation to clarify our intent that DOD establish a process (rather than a means) to use its counter-IED database once it is established.

In addition to comments on our recommendations, DOD questioned the accuracy of our statements regarding the soundness of JIEDDO’s prioritization and resource allocation determinations. Specifically, DOD stated that our report was inaccurate in stating that JIEDDO does not have a sound basis to determine how to invest DOD’s resources among the lines of operation: attack the network, defeat the device, and train the force. DOD further stated that JIEDDO has established procedures to assess counter-IED gaps and prioritize requirements in coordination with warfighting commanders and that JIEDDO coordinates counter-IED initiatives with numerous DOD offices, which DOD concluded ensures warfighting priorities, effectiveness of fielded counter-IED efforts, and cost reasonableness are addressed and evaluated. DOD also asserted that JIEDDO’s existing programming and prioritization processes align JIEDDO’s investment resources with Combatant Commander priorities. We recognize that JIEDDO has resource allocation and prioritization processes in place and have modified the language of this report to acknowledge these processes where applicable. However, we maintain our position that JIEDDO’s basis for determination of resource allocations and prioritizations is limited because DOD has not been able to identify all of its counter-IED efforts, as stated above, and lacks actionable goals and objectives needed to tie JIEDDO’s and the Department’s performance measures to outcomes that would assess its counter-IED efforts. Therefore, DOD does not have full assurance that its investments are achieving its strategic goal in the counter-IED fight.

We are sending copies of this report to other interested congressional committees and the Secretary of Defense. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (404) 679-1808 or at russellc@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors are listed in appendix IV.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

We considered counter-IED strategic planning efforts from February 2006 through 2012. To analyze the extent to which DOD has provided a comprehensive counter-IED strategic plan including strategic results- oriented goals and metrics that determine the effectiveness of efforts across DOD to combat IEDs, we collected and reviewed DOD’s counter- IED strategic-planning documents from JIEDDO. We also reviewed prior GAO reports and work papers involving strategic planning and management, both for JIEDDO and for the government in general. We used these GAO reports to identify leading strategic management practices derived from leading strategic management principles demonstrated by successful results-oriented organizations for use as evaluation criteria in this review. In addition, we interviewed JIEDDO officials involved in strategic planning and assessment to learn about the implementation of the actions detailed in the counter-IED strategic planning documents collected. Furthermore, we attended a counter-IED conference sponsored by JIEDDO in March 2011 that focused on a key element of strategic planning and management—measuring outcomes and performance—to observe and collect additional information relevant to DOD’s counter-IED strategic management. From the documents collected and interviews conducted, we identified several triggering actions that either provided the impetus for, or resulted in, counter-IED strategic management efforts in JIEDDO or elsewhere in DOD. We compared these actions against leading strategic management criteria described above and rated each according to its fulfillment of these leading practices.

We considered counter-IED efforts from fiscal years 2006 through 2011 managed by DOD components with involvement in counter-IED efforts: JIEDDO, military services, combatant commands, and defense agencies. To determine the extent to which DOD has identified counter-IED initiatives and activities, and coordinated these efforts, we reviewed JIEDDO databases on counter-IED efforts and interviewed OSD, military service and JIEDDO officials to discuss the availability of data about additional counter-IED efforts/initiatives. Through our interactions with JIEDDO officials, we determined that the best, most comprehensive repository of counter-IED information that currently existed was the Technology Matrix. We analyzed the Technology Matrix to obtain a list of persons, for each organization, who had entered information regarding counter-IED efforts into the database. Additionally, we reviewed and analyzed prior GAO counter-IED work to obtain relevant contact information, obtained current contact information of relevant organizations through our Inspector General liaison, and reviewed and analyzed other external sources of information, which contained relevant organizations.

We interviewed OSD, Service, and JIEDDO officials to discuss and determine awareness of DOD’s counter-IED efforts. To determine the effects of the absence of a comprehensive DOD listing of counter-IED initiatives within the department, we assessed whether DOD components continue to independently pursue counter-IED efforts that may be redundant or overlapping. We updated counter-IED initiatives case studies that we previously reported as having redundancy of effort and developed additional case studies of overlapping counter-IED efforts within DOD. We purposefully selected the additional case studies based on information in interviews with DOD officials or in data or documentation collected during this review that evidenced similar capabilities and objectives among two or more counter-IED efforts. In each case study, we compared the overlapping counter-IED efforts to determine and describe the degree of redundancy and potential duplication among the efforts for each case study given overlap of the capabilities and functions of these systems.

Appendix II: Supplemental Table to Figure 1

The following table identifies 17 key actions or triggering events applicable to DOD that were to either produce counter-IED strategic plans for the department or further develop the strategic plans. This table is similar to figure 1 but shows the interactive text without needing the interactive computer capability.

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, key contributors to this report were Grace Coleman, Rajiv D’Cruz, Emily Norman, Michael Shaughnessy, Rebecca Shea, Michael Silver, Amie Steele, William M. Solis, John Strong, and Tristan T.To.

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