The Defense Department plans to build a new supply depot in Bahrain within
the next six months to a year. The intent is to improve the availability of
spare parts and other essential military supplies in the Middle East.
A well-stocked logistics supply facility is needed in the Persian Gulf, where
the U.S. military is likely to remain deployed in the foreseeable future, said
Navy Vice Adm. Keith W. Lippert, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, in
Fort Belvoir, Va.
“There is a request that we have a more permanent presence over there,
in terms of a forward distribution depot,” Lippert said in an interview.
“I’m pretty much convinced we need to put the distribution depot
in Bahrain.”
The warehouse would stock at least 11,000 different types of spare parts and
supplies. Even though DLA still is fine-tuning the details, said Lippert, the
consensus is that the front-line units need “faster response” so
they can more quickly obtain spare parts.
DLA has not yet decided whether the depot will be managed by government employees
or outsourced to a contractor. “We are looking at different options,”
he said.
Lippert recently visited several Army, Marine Corps and Navy units stationed
in Kuwait and Bahrain to learn about their logistics support demands and figure
out what DLA must do to help “sustain” the forces in what is likely
to be an extended post-war rebuilding phase in Iraq.
While the Pentagon prides itself of its logistics skills in preparation for
a war and during the war, when it comes to sustainment, Lippert acknowledged,
the U.S. track record has been spotty.
“Sustainment is always the most difficult,” said Lippert. “When
we get ready to go [to war], we usually know what we need, based upon historical
trends and past experience.” Sustainment is harder to execute, because
“you usually don’t know how long you are going to be there.”
Despite numerous media reports and anecdotal evidence of the scant availability
of military spare parts in Iraq, Lippert insisted that these were “isolated
instances” and not symptoms of a systemic crisis.
While visiting units in the field, he said, “I asked repeatedly about
spare parts shortages.” The response he got from senior commanders was
that, “across the board, the readiness has really been pretty good.”
A military logistics expert who worked at the Pentagon for nearly two decades
said that building a new depot in Bahrain surely will help give the troops better
support, but also underscores how difficult it remains for the Defense Department
to adequately sustain forces deployed in foreign countries. It also poses a
dilemma for the Pentagon: Can forces be “expeditionary” and still
receive sufficient logistics support?
“Once you start building physical storage space, that goes counter to
the expeditionary force concept,” said James T. Eccleston, former assistant
deputy undersecretary of defense for supply-chain integration. “If you
start pre-positioning stuff, you are tying up inventory. If you guess wrong,
it becomes very costly.”
Early planning provided a huge advantage in DLA’s preparation for Operation
Iraqi Freedom. The massive movement of equipment and supplies might not have
been completed on time to begin the war in March if DLA had not been clued in
on the war plans last summer.
The deputy undersecretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness,
Diane K. Morales, met with DLA officials in July and “told us to start
planning for a potential conflict with Iraq,” Lippert said. “We
needed to develop our requirements and budgets accordingly.”
To more accurately estimate the needed supplies, Lippert asked Morales for
a breakdown of the forces that would be participating in the conflict. “About
a week later she gave us a force structure that was not exactly what we used
in Iraq, but wasn’t that much different either.”
By August, DLA estimated it needed a billion dollars to buy food rations, chemical-biological
protective suits, tents, cots, spare parts and fuel. “We ended up spending
$924 million before the war started,” Lippert said. About $500 million
in contracts already had been awarded by September. “Because we had that
lead time, we had a very robust supply line. It made a big difference.”
Unlike other government agencies, DLA does not receive appropriated funds but
draws money from a “working capital fund,” a revolving account to
which the military services must transfer money every time they place an order
for supplies from DLA.
When war preparations got under way in July, the Pentagon controller approved
the transfer of a billion dollars to DLA for the extra supplies. A billion dollars
represents only a small percentage of DLA’s projected $24 billion in sales
this year—a significant jump from $17 billion just two years ago.
“As long as sales are strong, we have a lot of financial flexibility,”
said Lippert. Approximately 30,000 requisitions a day flow into DLA’s
working capital fund.
Meanwhile, a prolonged military deployment for the rebuilding phase of the
Iraq conflict is creating new challenges for DLA. In May and June, for example,
the agency already was awarding contracts for winter clothing, in anticipation
of future demand.
“I’m sure we’ll be in Iraq and Kuwait during the winter months,”
said Lippert.
For the time being, DLA is working to fill a rush of urgent requests in recent
months for cooling equipment for heat-exhausted troops in Iraq. The Defense
Supply Center in Philadelphia has been shipping hundreds of small portable cooling
devices that soldiers can set up in their tents. The most popular ones are Port-A-Cool
evaporative coolers. These units have a large fan that cools the hot air via
a water-cooled filter. Requests for larger air-conditioning systems are handled
by an Air Force supply depot, the Warner Robins logistics center, in Georgia.