Word: pentagonals
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Waging battle is an expensive business--and it's getting more so. The U.S. Government Accountability Office's report on Pentagon spending details budget overruns on 72 vehicles and weapons systems owing to expensive redesigns or inefficient project management. As a result, the overall price tag of the military's investments in new technology is up about 50%, to $1.6 trillion. Some of the programs analyzed...
Like a studio releasing once censored scenes from a classic horror movie, on April 1 the Pentagon declassified a key memo used to justify the abuse of prisoners by the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Completed six days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the full text of the 81-page document is rife with shockingly broad edicts about prisoner treatment, like this barely constitutional chestnut: "In wartime, it is for the President alone to decide what methods to use to prevail against the enemy...
...Pentagon appears to be realizing that family-friendly is the way to go to ease the strains on those on active service. A generation ago, sergeants barked, "If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one." But under the pressure of war - and a force more married and female than ever - today's soldiers are not only allowed to be married to one another; those serving together in Iraq are being allowed to live together. Early reports (the policy change happened quietly in May 2006, but only became public this week...
...volunteers, and get them to stay with us during these very challenging times?" Army Secretary Pete Geren wondered aloud to military bloggers on March 26. At least part of the answer is money: The Army is doubling what it spends to take care of families, he said. The Pentagon is experimenting with three-year sabbaticals - including health benefits, but no pay - for personnel desiring a break in their military service. Other family-friendly measures include letting family members tap into their soldier's unused GI Education Bill benefits, giving military spouses hiring preferences for Federal jobs, and improving military daycare...
...then may be redeployed overseas again. Prior to 9/11, troops generally stayed home for 24 months before being deployed abroad for 12. Getting that 15-months-away, 12-months-at-home ratio down to 12-and-12 is currently the military's most urgent management challenge, Pentagon officials say. "My goal is to come down from 15 months as quickly as we can," Mullen told his North Carolina audience on Monday. That was the good news. But he quickly followed up with bad news: "When that will be, I don't know." So long as the op-tempo...