Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued his latest review on Thursday. | AP PhotoClose
By PHILIP EWING | 6/1/14
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s go-to weapon system is not found on any base, in any hangar or aboard any ship. It’s a review.
If he gets word of problems with the Defense Department’s health system — it’s under review. If he wants to change the composition of the world’s mightiest military force, there’s a review. If he needs to determine how a black female soldier may wear her hair — that takes a review. And they better be “comprehensive,” going from “soup to nuts.” They had better solicit input from all the “key stakeholders.”
In the meantime, sorry, the secretary cannot comment on it until the reviews are complete.
Hagel issued the marching orders for his latest review on Thursday, this time to help him decide what, if anything, to do about DOD’s health system. The Department of Veterans Affairs is under significant political pressure following the embarrassing revelations from its review, so Hagel wants to look inside DOD’s own roughly 56 hospitals to be sure there aren’t similar problems lurking there.
“This is part of leadership and oversight to assure — and constantly assure, and reassure our people that we are doing what we need to do in order to fulfill a commitment we made to them in health care,” he told reporters.
Since he became secretary, Hagel has ordered reviews of the military’s force structure, judicial system, nuclear enterprise — including both nuclear weapons and the Navy’s nuclear warships — its ethics and “professionalism,” base security and security clearances, the rising number of military sexual assaults, the Army’s new uniform and appearance standards, medals and awards and now the health system.
The military services run still more of their own reviews. What about the Marines’ new amphibious vehicle? What about the Navy’s new small surface combatant? What about the Army’s new camouflage pattern?
In the case of the health system review, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work will run the show, signaling just how seriously the Pentagon takes it. Hagel wants his first update on Friday, the Pentagon says, and a full report by Aug. 29. In the meantime, there will likely be a limit to what DOD can say about the health care system because it doesn’t want to get ahead of the results.
That’s one of the amazing things about a Defense Department review — or, at certain times of the year, a budget document in preparation or due to Congress. It acts like a “mute” button on a TV remote when reporters — or members of Congress — want answers about what officials think, what they might do or who might be held accountable.
More reviews are in store. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who is pushing for Congress to buy more EA-18G Growler electronic attack jets, told reporters recently that he expects a Pentagon “portfolio review” of electronic attack systems across the military services this summer. But there are reviews and then there are reviews, and the portfolio review Greenert described belongs to the lower tier.
“It’s not a proper noun,” he said.
Then there are the reviews of reviews. A few years ago, the Army had to review the review produced by two former leaders that castigated its weapons acquisition as enormously wasteful — to the tune of as much as 35 percent to 45 percent of its development budget every year. And an independent panel chartered by Congress is getting set to review this year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, with its review of the review due out by the end of June.
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