The BRAC 2005 process consisted of a series of legislatively prescribed steps as follows: DOD proposed the selection criteria. DOD was required to propose the selection criteria to be used to develop and evaluate the candidate recommendations, consistent with considerations specified in the statute authorizing BRAC 2005. The criteria were to be made available for public comment in the Federal Register. Congress subsequently codified the eight final BRAC selection criteria used in BRAC 2005. The BRAC statute directed GAO to evaluate the selection criteria. Figure 1 displays the eight criteria. Importantly, Congress specified that the first four criteria relating to enhancing military value were to be the priority criteria. DOD developed a force structure plan and infrastructure inventory. Congress required the Secretary of Defense to develop and submit to Congress a force structure plan laying out the numbers, size, and composition of the units that constitute U.S. defense forces—for example, divisions, ships, and air wings—based on the Secretary’s assessment of the probable national security threats over the ensuing 20 year period, and an inventory of global military installations. The BRAC statute directed GAO to evaluate the force structure plan and infrastructure inventory. Secretary of Defense was required to provide certain certifications. On the basis of the force structure plan, infrastructure inventory, and accompanying analyses, the Secretary of Defense was required to certify whether the need existed for the closure or realignment of military installations. If the Secretary certified that the need existed, he was also required to certify that the round of closures and realignments would result in annual net savings for each of the military departments beginning not later than fiscal year 2011. The BRAC statute directed GAO to evaluate the need for the 2005 BRAC round. DOD began to develop options for closure or realignment recommendations. The military departments developed service-specific installation closure and realignment options. In addition, OSD established seven joint cross-service teams, called joint cross-service groups, to develop options across common business-oriented functions, such as medical services, supply and storage, and administrative activities. These closure and realignment options were reviewed by DOD’s Infrastructure Executive Council—a senior-level policy-making and oversight body for the entire process. Options approved by this council were submitted to the Secretary of Defense for his review and approval. DOD developed hundreds of closure or realignment options for further analysis, which eventually led to DOD’s submitting over 200 recommendations to the BRAC Commission for analysis and review. The BRAC statute directed GAO to analyze the recommendations of the Secretary and the selection process, and we issued our report to the congressional defense committees on July 1, 2005. BRAC Commission performed an independent review of DOD’s recommendations. After DOD selected its base closure and realignment recommendations, it submitted them to the BRAC Commission, which performed an independent review and analysis of DOD’s recommendations. The Commission could approve, modify, reject, or add closure and realignment recommendations. Also, the BRAC Commission provided opportunities to interested parties, as well as community and congressional leaders, to provide testimony and express viewpoints. The Commission then voted on each individual closure or realignment recommendation, and those that were approved were included in the Commission’s report to the President. In 2005, the BRAC Commission reported that it had rejected or modified about 14 percent of DOD’s closure and realignment recommendations. President approved BRAC recommendations. After receiving the recommendations, the President was to review the recommendations of the Secretary of Defense and the Commission and prepare a report by September 23, 2005, containing his approval or disapproval of the Commission’s recommendations as a whole. Had the President disapproved of the Commission’s recommendations, the Commission would have had until October 20, 2005, to submit a revised list of recommendations to the President for further consideration. If the President had not submitted a report to Congress of his approval of the Commission’s recommendations by November 7, 2005, the BRAC process would have been terminated. The President submitted his report and approval of the 2005 Commission’s recommendations on September 15, 2005. Congress allowed the recommendations to become binding. After the President transmitted his approval of the Commission’s recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of Defense would have been prohibited from implementing the recommendations if Congress had passed a joint resolution of disapproval within 45 days of the date of the President’s submission or the adjournment of Congress for the session, whichever was sooner. Since Congress did not pass such a resolution, the recommendations became binding in November 2005. Congress established clear time frames for implementation. The BRAC legislation required DOD to complete recommendations for closing or realigning bases made in BRAC 2005 by September 15, 2011—6 years from the date the President submitted his approval of the recommendations to Congress. Figure 2 displays the timeline of the BRAC 2005 round. GAO identified several factors and challenges that contributed to DOD’s implementation of BRAC 2005 and the results achieved. In contrast to other BRAC rounds that were primarily focused on achieving savings by reducing excess infrastructure, the Secretary of Defense identified three goals for BRAC 2005. Specifically, BRAC 2005 was intended to transform the military, foster jointness, and reduce excess infrastructure to produce savings. These goals and the primary selection criteria’s focus on enhancing military value led DOD to identify numerous recommendations that were designed to be transformational and enhance jointness, thereby adding to the complexity the Commission and DOD faced in finalizing and implementing the BRAC recommendations. Some key challenges that have confronted or continue to confront DOD or the Commission in regard to BRAC 2005 are as follows. Some transformational-type BRAC recommendations required sustained senior leadership attention and a high level of coordination among many stakeholders to complete by the required date. The consolidation of supply, storage, and distribution functions within the Defense Logistics Agency is an example of an atypical use of the BRAC process. The supply, storage, and distribution BRAC recommendation is transformational because it focuses on complex business process reengineering efforts involving the transfer of personnel and management functions. As we previously reported, the Defense Logistics Agency was faced with the potential for disruptions to depot operations during implementation of the BRAC consolidation recommendation and took certain steps we have identified as best practices to minimize the potential for disruption. These included committing sustained high-level leadership and including relevant stakeholders in an organizational structure to address implementation challenges as they arose. To implement the BRAC recommendations, the agency had to develop strategic agreements with the services that ensured that all stakeholders agreed on its plans for implementation, and had to address certain human capital and information technology challenges. Similarly, another type of transformational BRAC recommendation that required sustained senior leadership attention was the establishment of the Navy’s Fleet Readiness Centers. DOD expects this BRAC recommendation to produce significant savings; however, as we reported, this BRAC recommendation required sustained senior leadership attention to ensure effective completion. Our prior work states that sustained leadership is necessary to achieve workforce reorganizations and agency goals. Implementation of some transformational BRAC recommendations— especially those where a multitude of organizations and units all had roles to play to ensure the achievement of the goals of the recommendation— illustrated the need to involve key stakeholders and effective planning. For example, to transform the reserve forces in many states, the Army had planned to implement 44 BRAC recommendations to construct 125 new Armed Forces Reserve Centers by September 15, 2011. As we previously reported, the Army identified several potential challenges, including completing all of the construction within the statutory implementation period, changing force structure and mission requirements that could affect the capacity of the new centers, and realizing efficiencies based on limited testing of new construction processes. Conversely, as we also previously reported, the Air Force used a consultative process that involved stakeholders to assign new missions to units that would lose flying missions as a result of 37 BRAC recommendations affecting 56 Air National Guard installations. As a result of this consultative process, Air National Guard units affected by BRAC 2005 were assigned replacement missions, of which 83 percent were highest priority, mission-critical missions, or a new flying mission. However, implementation of these BRAC recommendations led to other challenges that required significant stakeholder coordination. These challenges included the capacity of Air National Guard headquarters to develop new unit staffing documents, the need to retrain personnel for an intelligence mission at a rate that exceeded the capacity of the relevant school, and that Air National Guard Headquarters had not identified bridge missions for all units that will face a delay between losing their old flying mission and the startup of their replacement mission. Establishing a specific organizational structure to overcome likely obstacles and help achieve desired goals. OSD emphasized the need for joint cross-service groups to analyze common business-oriented functions for BRAC 2005, an approach made more important by the desire to develop transformational BRAC recommendations. As with the 1993 and 1995 BRAC rounds, these joint cross-service groups performed analyses and developed closure and realignment options in addition to those developed by the military services. However, our evaluation of DOD’s 1995 round indicated that the joint cross-service groups submitted options through the military services for approval, resulting in few being approved. Conversely, the number of BRAC recommendations developed by the joint cross-service groups increased significantly in the BRAC 2005 round. This was due, in part, to high-level leadership ensuring that the options were reviewed by a DOD senior-level group, known as the Infrastructure Steering Group, rather than the military services. As shown in figure 3, the Infrastructure Steering Group was placed organizationally on par with the military departments. DOD had to develop BRAC oversight mechanisms to improve accountability for implementation of the BRAC recommendations. For the first time, OSD required the military departments to develop business plans to better inform OSD of financial and status of implementation details for each of the BRAC 2005 recommendations and to facilitate OSD oversight.