Military Inventory Study Cites Ongoing Waste, Theft
Theft and loss of military equipment is so rampant that even jet engines have disappeared, according to a new government study that also found the Army warehousing 150,000 pairs of Korean War-era winter leggings and the Navy maintaining hundreds of millions of dollars worth of parts for ships that were mothballed years ago.
The report of the General Accounting Office, to be released today, concludes that the Pentagon’s handling of its $103-billion worth of spare parts and equipment is “highly susceptible to mismanagement, fraud and abuse” despite scores of critical studies over the last 20 years and numerous promises to improve inventory procedures.
The report said military warehouses are overflowing with unneeded goods while officials continue to buy millions of dollars worth of the same items. It found that the Navy spends $24 million a year to store 140,000 items that probably never will be used, while nearly a fourth of the Army inventory is “excess.”
Thousands of parts are reordered because supply officers can’t find previously purchased materials because of poor record-keeping and the chaotic condition of bulging Pentagon warehouses, the GAO found.
Physical security at storage sites is poor and control over shipments from one facility to another is lax, inviting theft and loss, they found. Even several jet engines for Air Force F-16 fighters could not be found.
The agency noted that private industry has made great strides in adopting “just-in-time” inventory management and other cost-saving measures, while the Defense Department has been slow to modernize.
Much of the problem was traced to military officials obsessed with having “the right part in the right place at the right time” but unconcerned about gross over-purchases of many items. The Army, in particular, has excessive stocks of some items in one location but none at another, leading to duplicate orders.
The congressional accounting agency noted that Pentagon brass have repeatedly promised to fix the system, but have consistently failed to deliver. “Serious problems continue to impede (the Department of Defense’s) ability to effectively manage many aspects of its inventories. . . . The DOD needs to change its mind set and reform the way it manages its inventory,” the GAO said.
The report echoes the findings of a study earlier this year by the Senate Budget Committee that found that $30 billion of the Pentagon’s inventory is unneeded. It said the Army had purchased 126 different sizes of a women’s dress shirt, the Navy had a 13,557-year supply of a machine tool used to make circuits for the F-14 fighter plane and that parts for Army helicopters had been left to rust outside a St. Louis warehouse that was too full to take them.
Defense officials will have an opportunity to defend the system today at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on readiness. Colin R. McMillan, the assistant secretary of defense for production and logistics, will appear to answer the GAO charges, but a Pentagon spokesman said he would not comment in advance of the committee hearing.
