Washington pulse

December 2007

By Sandra I. Erwin and Stew Magnuson

Contractors Unwittingly Give Up Secrets, Says CIO

Pentagon Chief Information Officer John G. Grimes has put industry on notice. Tighten your internal network security, he tells a roomful of contractors. Spies are extracting drips and drabs of highly sensitive information from defense companies, and these pieces of intelligence add up to a full picture of what the U.S. military is doing, Grimes says.

He has already met with the top 20 military contractors to voice his concern. “Our networks are being bled … We’re bleeding to folks we don’t want to be bled to.”

Iraqi Vendors Urged to Bid on U.S. Contracts

To make it easier for Iraqi companies to score U.S. military contracts over in the war zone, the Pentagon created a database that lists in Arabic all available contract opportunities. Since the “joint contingency contracting system” went online a year ago, 5,000 Iraqi firms have earned $400 million worth of business, says Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business transformation. Considering that Iraq’s gross domestic product is $40 billion, he notes, these sales provide a “significant economic stimulus.”

Change? Don’t Even Think About It

At the Defense Information Systems Agency, it is not easy to even suggest minor changes to the status quo, laments DISA’s chief, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Croom. “I work in a bureaucracy of 15,000 folks — 6,600 military and civilians, 8,000 contractors. Many have worked there for 20, 30 years. How do you get them to recognize that the way they did business yesterday may not be the way we want to do business tomorrow?” One of the phrases Croom often hears at DISA is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he says. “That’s the wrong statement.”

In Military Acquisition, Civilians Rule

It is rare these days to find green-suit officers in charge of major procurement programs. That has to change, says Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III, director of the Army Acquisition Corps.

“Our acquisition workforce is 97 percent civilian,” he says. “It’s out of balance.”

By comparison, 88 percent of the Navy’s and 65 percent of the Air Force’s weapon buying workforces are made up of civilians. An independent commission led by former Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler cited the dearth of military contracting officers in war zones as a contributing factor to procurement fraud in Iraq and Kuwait.

A Tough Sell: Hardware for the Wars of 2030

Under the latest schedule, the Army’s Future Combat Systems will be completely fielded by 2030. That timeline speaks volumes about the difficulties the Army has selling the program to skeptical appropriators on Capitol Hill.

“It’s difficult for Congress to envision 2030,” says Army Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, deputy chief of staff for programs and resources.

To help market the program to lawmakers, FCS contractors built a 53-foot trailer that contains a 3D simulation of the system. The creator of the simulation, James Korris, says most people don’t understand what FCS does. “It’s easy to get bogged down in charts and spreadsheets when you look at a program like Future Combat Systems.”

Army Brass Pleads for More Overseas Bases

Army leaders are unhappy with base-closure laws that require that 94 percent of its combat units be based in the United States by 2011. The upshot will be an Army that cannot quickly respond to contingencies, says Gen. David McKiernan, commander of Army forces in Europe. “If you want to have an Army that is expeditionary, that can work with other countries, has cultural appreciation of other countries, that can develop language skills, it’s very difficult to do when forces are in the United States,” he says. “If there are requirements to support operations in Africa, where do forces come from? If you are positioned in Europe, you’re better able to respond than if you were in Kansas.”

Please email your comments to SErwin@ndia.org

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