Pentagon vows to cut waste in contracts: "The Pentagon on Tuesday vowed to crack down on the cost of contracts for weapons and services, issuing new rules designed to make the military's vast bureaucracy more efficient.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the guidelines would aim to bolster productivity for contracts that make up about 400 million dollars in the department's roughly 700 billion annual budget.
The rules 'will enable this department to make programs more affordable without sacrificing important capabilities and prevent us from embarking on programs that have to be canceled when they prove unaffordable,' Gates told a news conference.
In describing the new rules, a memorandum sent to Pentagon managers by the undersecretary of defense describes the goal of increasing productivity in blunt terms and in upper case: 'DO MORE WITHOUT MORE.'"
