From Aviation Week, April 30, 2009, by Bettina H. Chavanne
On the job for our only four days, new Defense Department acquisitions chief Ashton Carter laid out his priorities at a roundtable with select reporters here April 30, starting with a fresh look at the Pentagon's portfolio.
A program-by-program review is "job one," Carter said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 6 made his budget recommendations known. Now it is time for "spinning out the implications of those decisions."
He steered clear of mentioning any particular program, including the Air Force's embattled refueling tanker replacement, telling reporters only that "you know what those programs are."
Next, the need to move equipment and other assets from Iraq to Afghanistan is a "non-trivial matter," Carter said, putting logistics at the No. 2 spot. "We can't afford not to meet those timetables." Related issues that fall under this priority include the number of contractors on the battlefield (and in DOD) and rapid acquisition. Once one program is fielded quickly, Carter said, the question becomes, why can't all programs be fielded as rapidly?
"I'm going to get to the bottom of those questions," he said. "It's my way of responding to that ringing in my ears from Secretary Gates's saying the building isn't supporting the war effort."
The drive for acquisition reform likewise coming from the White House and Congress provides an excellent opportunity to fix the process. "Now's the time to do better," Carter said. "If it is going to be different from other efforts, it's because of the constellation of people interested in taking a risk to do things differently if they can see the payoff."
Carter's take is to expand beyond merely fixing the front end of the acquisition process, which is where much of the current lawmaking is focused. "The classical approach doesn't help you with programs already off the rails or not being executed properly, or the need for which has disappeared or diminished in some way," Carter said. He also advocated for making other changes. "I put what the Secretary did a few weeks ago in the category of acquisition reform, at the back end," he said. "I would say...[it] was acquisition reform of a different kind, and also of a necessary kind."
Carter further mentioned the reviews scheduled for this year - including the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Nuclear Posture Review, a mobility capability study and missile defense examination. He called such landmark reviews "a real opportunity for everybody in the building" to think together about the future. "I want to make sure I and my organization play a role in doing that," he said.
The former Harvard professor and Clinton administration official was confirmed by the Senate without recorded opposition April 23, but only after Alabama Republican Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions were able to meet with Gates over concerns with the USAF's KC-X tanker effort.
