By Marina Malenic
Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) said staffing data related to the proposed closing of U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), headquartered in Norfolk, Va., has not been turned over since his August request to the Pentagon, leading to his decision this week to put a hold on all defense nominees and promotions.
“This would never have happened when I was at the Pentagon,” Webb, a former Navy secretary, told reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
“There’s a lot of slow rolling going on, and it needs to stop,” he added. “It’s a lack of respect.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed closing JFCOM when he unveiled a series of budget proposals on Aug. 9. Webb said he requested the historical staffing data shortly thereafter.
JFCOM is one of the 10 U.S. combatant commands.
Earlier this month, the chairman of a key House panel said he would not support Gates’ proposed efficiency initiatives until the department discloses details of the analysis that led to Gates’ decisions. House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) stopped short of subpoenaing Gates for the data behind his proposal to close JFCOM, the Pentagon’s Business Transformation Agency and Office of Network and Information Integration.
Webb said yesterday that he is seeking to find out whether the Pentagon has carefully analyzed the functions of all 10 combatant commands in determining which to shutter.
“The same questions can be asked about all the commands,” he said when asked about the merits of JFCOM.
He also wants the department to disclose the growth in personnel at each command over the course of the past several decades. Defense officials have told members of Congress that they are still compiling the data. However, Webb said that information should have been collected before decisions to shutter any command were made.
In retaliation, Webb earlier this week vowed to block all Defense Department nominees and promotions until the information sought by Congress is released.
Webb, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Personnel subcommittee, also said he does not support slashing military pay and benefits, despite the massive growth in the department’s health care costs. The department’s senior leaders have recently bemoaned the growth of entitlement spending. Gates said earlier this year said healthcare costs “are eating the Defense Department alive.” And Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, recently warned that “unbounded” healthcare costs are “forcing out military content elsewhere in the Department of Defense portfolio.”
Webb said that Army and Marine Corps end strength and weapons programs across the services should also be “on the table” in any negotiations on getting Pentagon cost growth under control.