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Fearing budget cuts, Pentagon buried study on wasteful spending


The US Defense Department has buried a study that revealed a $125 billion waste of administrative funds, fearing it that would prompt Congress to cut the military budget, according to a new report.
Released in January 2015, the study identifies a "clear path" for the Pentagon to save $125 billion a year over a period of five years, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The study, which was conducted by the Defense Business Board and consultants from McKinsey and Co, had found that the goal would be achieved through streamlining the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailing the use of contractors and making better use of information technology.
According to the report, personnel and cost data showed that around a quarter of the Pentagon’s $580 billion budget was wasted on operations related to accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.
The study also found that the Defense Department had more than one million employees handling desk jobs. Of those, 298,000 were uniformed personnel, 448,000 were civilian workers and 268,000 were contractors.
This is while the number all American troops on active duty stood at around 1.3 million.
The Post stated that Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work had first requested the study but later decided to shelve it, arguing that the proposed $125 billion in savings was unrealistic.
Despite garnering support among some commanders, Pentagon officials ultimately killed the plan and removed a 77-page summary of it from their website, worrying that it might lead to more cuts by Congress or the White House, the report said.
The new revelation came days after the US House of Representatives easily passed President Barack Obama’s requested military budget of $618.7 billion for the next fiscal year, allowing the Pentagon to increase payments as well as the number of active duty forces.
The massive bill put the Pentagon’s base budget at $582.7 billion, while allowing it to take another $58.8 billion from a war fund named the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.
The 2017 budget was $2.4 billion larger than the previous year.

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