Pentagon officials: Spending is bloated: "Top Defense Department officials told Congress Tuesday that Pentagon overspending must be curtailed in order to maintain the current size and strength of the armed forces.
Explaining the reasons for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's ambitious program to reduce costs, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III told the Senate Armed Services Committee that 'headquarters and support bureaucracies, military and civilian alike . . . have swelled to cumbersome proportions, grown over-reliant on contractors and become accustomed to operating with little consideration of costs.'
Ashton B. Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the senators that more than $200 billion was being spent annually for contractors that provide information technology, facilities upkeep, weapons system maintenance and transportation.
"Believe it or not," he said, "our practices for buying such services are even less effective than for buying weapons systems."
Carter said one of the fastest-growing contractor areas was for personnel to advise or augment military staffs in areas in which they lacked expertise, such as information operations. These contracts have been handled by Pentagon civilian and military personnel who were experienced in buying ships and airplanes but, as Carter put it, were "amateurs" when it came to contracts for augmentation of military staffs. "
