The director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) said the agency is already beginning to move items out of Afghanistan ahead of the larger work expected as U.S. troops begin to leave the country and the international combat mission ends in 2014.
DLA, the combat logistics support agency, ships food, fuel, uniforms, repair parts, building and medical supplies for the services, other federal agencies, and combined and allied forces.
Items unneeded in the Kandahar distribution center, for example, are being sent home, DLA Director Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek said after the Defense Writers Group breakfast recently.
Such things as copper wiring heads back to the United States, because not only can it be reused, but also because it adds to the agency’s ability to keep airlift costs down by sending aircraft fully loaded not only to Afghanistan, but back home as well.
The services determine whether a piece of unit equipment heads back to the United States to be reset, for example, but for service-declared unserviceable equipment DLA “needs to be prepared in country” to take the appropriate actions, he told reporters.
While Harnitchek is not prepared to say how much equipment is going to come back, “it’s not half’” of what’s already there.
A Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) or other armored vehicle can be “cut into small pieces with a propane or arc welder,” Harnitchek said.
And, there are “monstrous, huge” machines, about three times the size of the room, that chomp armor into 18-inch squares. Other huge machines feature big claws that rip and tear whatever is being discarded into small pieces that go for scrap.
There are three to four large distribution centers where these machines work, and can “cut up several hundred vehicles per month,” he said.
As the services turn from conflict to the uncertainties of budgets and a smaller military, Harnitchek aims to see the agency cost “a whole lot less” in five years, something he calls $10 billion/5 years.
“We’ve spent the last 10 years on a wartime funding,” he said. As he looks to 2018, he wants to see a $10 billion reduction, “independent of demand,” he said.
But efficiencies don’t count, he said. For example, DLA plans to close a distribution depot in Kuwait in February 2013 that costs some $90 million a year. This is efficiency, not a reduction.
The agency will look at leveraging commercial supply chains when buying and warehousing common items to increase savings. This is not for military-unique things, but nuts and bolts and other things common in the commercial world.
Another area where DLA plans to increase its efforts is in reverse auctions–where suppliers bid against each other and the agency reaps the lower price.