Military Divisions Pledge to Work Together
Monday, June 18, 2001
WASHINGTON — The three civilians in charge of the Army, Navy and Air Force pledged Monday to drop entrenched rivalries and work as a team to improve the way the Pentagon works and thereby bolster the nation's defense.
"A lot of this stuff has been studied to death. It's very clear what needs to be done. The challenge is for us to execute and get after it," new Army Secretary Thomas White said.
He was accompanied by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Navy Secretary Gordon England and Air Force Secretary James Roche, all tapped by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to set up new, internal Pentagon management teams to improve the way the Pentagon does business.
The three new secretaries, all of whom have wide experience in the Defense Department and defense industry, are supposed to recommend changes to save money. Each man said they intend to use the savings to improve the way their services treat their people, as well as improve their war-fighting capabilities.
In the past, service secretaries have been plum jobs handed to major contributors to presidential campaigns rather than people with military or bureaucratic experience inside the armed forces. Wolfowitz said these men were chosen for the depth of their understanding of military theory and the business side of the military services.
England said studies have shown that making the Pentagon more efficient could save money -- perhaps as much as $5 billion to $30 billion.
As an incentive, the new savings can be spent by the service that finds it.
"It's jointness at the top," Roche said, noting that the uniformed services long have been asked to find more efficient ways to operate together.
White said he intends to focus on speeding up improvements in Army housing. England said one of his top priorities was to instill better management accounting systems in his service.
The Defense Department is different from a commercial business -- and must look to Congress for its funding, but the department is not "outside of the U.S. economic mainstream," England said.
Wolfowitz said President Bush and Rumsfeld want to take advantage of new technology to improve the services, and the three men all understand the "technology, the doctrine, and the industrial implications," of developing weaponry for the future.
"They bring not only extraordinary individual qualifications, but also the ability to work as a team, and it's teamwork that Secretary Rumsfeld has asked us to pull together," Wolfowitz said.
Prior to their appointments, England served as executive vice president of General Dynamics Corporation and Roche held several executive posts with Northrop Grumman Corporation, including corporate vice president. White, a brigadier general who graduated from West Point, served as vice chairman of Enron Energy Services.
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