Navy Supply System Termed ‘Flawed,’ ‘Archaic’

A scorching internal assessment of the Navy’s supply system has emerged from an inquiry into a sailor’s complaints about problems on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, newly released documents showed Monday.

Most of Petty Officer Robert Jackson’s allegations of fraud and mismanagement on the San Diego-berthed carrier were ruled to be without merit by the judge advocate general’s investigation. But the report on the inquiry, as it made its way up the Navy chain of command, became a vehicle for critical remarks on the service’s vast supply system.

Comments such as “flawed,” “systemic disregard of regulations,” “poor management” and “archaic system” are sprinkled throughout a six-inch-thick stack of documents, which were obtained by The Times under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Navy withheld parts of the report on the grounds that full disclosure would hinder continuing investigations or result in invasion of privacy. It was disclosed last fall that administrative action had been taken against the commander and two supply officers of the Kitty Hawk for “deviation from accepted standards.”

A Kitty Hawk storekeeper was among eight people arrested last summer and accused of joining a ring of thieves and smugglers used by Iran to obtain spare parts for its U.S.-made F-14 fighters.

The documents released by the Navy contained scant references to the Iranian thefts, but they included candid assessments of problems within the overall supply system. One example is the description of the supply system’s computer capabilities by Vice Adm. James E. Service, commander of the Pacific Fleet’s naval air operations.

“If SUADPS (Shipboard Uniform Automated Data Processing System) were an airline reservation system, the ticket agent, after processing a reservation request, would be unable to confirm the reservation for three to five days,” Service wrote in a memo attached to the report.

“If not confirmed, the reservation request would have to be repeated, since the first request did not result in a reservation,” he added. “Unfortunately, this is ‘state of the art’ data entry on (Pacific Fleet) carriers today.”

In discussing efforts to reconcile records for the carrier’s $233-million inventory of parts and supplies, Service said that “it is abundantly clear that, if material is being stolen from the storerooms, the SUADPS accounting system cannot detect it and was never designed to do so.”

“The existing financial system is incredibly cumbersome,” he added, and “a complete overhaul/revision . . . is not only imperative but vital to a long-term solution.”

Service noted that the typical carrier buys more than $3 million a year in supplies and parts directly from commercial vendors without going through on-shore procurement offices. He said that the combination of limited stays in port and “urgent needs for material has placed an inordinate burden” on a carrier’s small procurement staff.

“An environment of bending/breaking administrative contract regulations has been fostered by the volume of procurement requirements, urgency of need, time constraints . . . and the shore establishment’s inability to respond,” he said.

From Service’s San Diego office, the report was sent to Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor, where Adm. S. R. Foley added his blunt assessment. Aircraft carriers like the Kitty Hawk, he said, “are overwhelmed by sheer volume” and lack the “automated management tools, expertise and . . . personnel to sustain strict financial accountability. . . . “

Foley expressed concern that personnel “needed to ensure accountability are being reassigned from an already constrained fiscal and manpower base.”

He forwarded the report to Adm. James D. Watkins, the chief of naval operations, who disclosed to congressional committees last fall that he had ordered steps to accelerate improvements in computers, training and personnel.

“We have made progress,” Watkins said in a memo. “What is clear from this report is that we have not made sufficient progress.”