HUNTSVILLE, Ala.–The Army’s top officer wants service chiefs to have more involvement and broader input into the weapon acquisition process.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Wednesday he’d like for service chiefs “actually get authority” in areas where they are part of the approval authority. Odierno said chiefs currently influence acquisition, including funding, priorities and decisions, “through personality,” but still have “no authority.”
Odierno doesn’t want service chiefs to replace the acquisition executives, but he said he believes increased service chief input could also improve services’ acquisition corps.
“We have, obviously, input into the requirements, but I’d like to see us have a broader input because of I think the expertise and experience that we bring,” Odierno told reporters here at the Association of United States Army (AUSA) Global Force Symposium and Exposition.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) last week introduced legislation aimed at reforming the Defense Department’s acquisition system, in part to make it faster in the deployment of new technologies by lessening bureaucratic requirements.
The bill requires the top officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to review their current individual authorities under law related to defense acquisitions to further advance the role of the chiefs in DoD’s requirements development, acquisition processes and associated budget practices. Odierno said the Army is still working through those “exact authorities” and will provide them to Thornberry.
Ray DuBois, senior adviser at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and former acting Army under secretary from February 2005 to February 2006, said Wednesday he believes that service chiefs have never been practically removed from the acquisition chain. DuBois said the chiefs still hold enormous influence as they control general officer assignments for program executive officers (PEO), the assignments of colonels and one-star generals as program managers and who gets command of Army Materiel Command, among other positions.
Odierno said he also wants bureaucracy reduced in acquisition to increase the speed that new technology, systems and concepts are introduced. This, he said, will allow the Army to react and adapt in a much faster way as today’s world is one that moves much faster.
“Information moves much faster,” Odierno said. “We have to be able to move fast with it.”
Odierno also said the testing portion of acquisition needs to be improved. Though Odierno said he believes independent testing is essential to verifying and ensuring weapons are acquired appropriately, he thinks the testing process can be streamlined, leading to increased acquisition speed and improved cost performance.
Odierno said he believes DoD has a “unique opportunity” to take advantage of acquisition reform as both authorization committees, HASC and the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) with Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), are led by reform-minded individuals. Odierno also cited declining defense budgets as part of DoD’s unique opportunity for acquisition reform.
Thornberry said at an event in March his legislation is a “start” that tries to focus on the basics of the acquisition process: people, strategy and the decision-making chain to buy goods and services. Thornberry outlined four key tenants: addressing the people in acquisition, the strategy, streamlining the bureaucratic process and reporting mandates (Defense Daily, March 23).