Gore Lauds DoD Reforms

WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES

11.09.1997

Courtesy Story

Defense.gov         

Vice President Al Gore praised the Defense Department Nov. 10 for its plan to become "leaner, more competitive and more efficient in its business practices."

Gore was at the Pentagon along with Defense Secretary William Cohen, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the rollout of a new defense reform initiative.

Based on the findings of the Defense Reform Task Force, headed by Hamre, the plan's goal is to save money for modernization muscle by cutting fat -- excess staff, redundant functions and infrastructure.

Replacing aging military equipment is an urgent national requirement, Gore said. "We have the money we need to keep America's military forces fully modern and fully capable, but we are spending too much of our defense money on the wrong stuff," he said.

Gore said the "wrong stuff" includes too much paperwork and "an industrial age bureaucracy that is too expensive and too slow to keep pace in the world today." Businesses cannot survive like that, and neither can national defense, he said.

Cohen announced his decision to downsize and restructure his headquarters staff. Gore noted he and the defense secretary had agreed, "Big, all-powerful, all-knowing corporate headquarters operations are a thing of the past. Today's world needs fast-moving, fast-thinking, fully empowered frontline workers and frontline fighters."

Shelton said the military's senior leaders agreed with the reform initiative. He said, considering the smaller force, the department needs to rebalance its "tooth-to-tail" ratio to be sure funds are available for modernization and joint operations.

"We need to have agile organizations that have been trimmed in size, that can move quickly, that have the best information technology available so we can direct and support our armed forces and our joint operations in the best possible manner," Shelton said.

Gore particularly hailed DoD plans for incorporating private industry practices. "Government should emulate the best in business, learn from them and adopt their best business practices," he said.

"Information technology is changing everything from the way we buy equipment to the way we fight," Gore said. "It is the key to America's future strength as a defense leader, just as it is the key to America's future as a business leader."

Preparing for the future is one of the biggest challenges DoD leaders face, Cohen said. "How do we streamline, reform and re-engineer ourselves to provide the necessary dollars which will keep us on the very front end of technology and to allow our troops to remain the superior force they are today? ... We need to make sure we have the resources necessary to prepare for the future."

Cohen said DoD will apply such successful private enterprise activities as creating a paperless environment by 2001. Holding up a foot-high stack of finance regulations in one hand and a CD-ROM in the other, Cohen illustrated the past and future. "By next July," he said, "all of these regulations will either be on CD-ROM or on the Internet."

Cohen said a revolution in the department's business affairs is needed to keep pace with the revolution in military affairs. "What we are doing is providing a corporate vision for the Department of Defense," he said. "We want to ensure we continue to lead in a world of accelerating change."

Cohen announced the following decisions:

Story by Linda D. Kozaryn, American Forces Press Service

• Date Taken: 11.09.1997
• Date Posted: 07.04.2025 00:33
• Story ID: 529662
• Location: WASHINGTON, US