Defense Secretary James Mattis tore Pentagon officials apart in a memo for what he described as "cavalier" spending after a report showed that the Defense Department spent up to $28 million over 10 years on camouflage uniforms that are inefficient on the country's terrain.
The report came from a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) which found that the DOD was buying forest-patterned uniforms in 2007 after a former Afghan defense minister saw them online and liked them. The uniforms were purchased untested to be used in Afghanistan which is primarily made up of desert and mountain ranges and whose woodlands only makeup two percent of the country. The Inspector General also discovered that special tailoring massively increased the cost of the uniforms as well as the use of an expensive licensed camouflage pattern while free versions were available.
In Mattis' memo about the matter, he said, "Buying uniforms for our Afghan partners, and doing so in a way that may have wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars over a 10-year period, must not be seen as inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Department's responsibilities and budget."
"Cavalier or casually acquiescent decisions to spend taxpayer dollars in an ineffective and wasteful manner are not to recur," he added.
Because of the report, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee will conduct a hearing today with Inspector General John Sopko in hopes of looking at spending for Pentagon equipment and uniform acquisitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mattis has made a point to make lethality a very important factor is U.S. policies towards military spending and programs.
"The report is an indication of a frame of mind -- an attitude that can affect any of us at the Pentagon or across the Department of Defense -- showing how those entrusted with supporting and equipping troops on the battlefield, if we let down our guard, can lose focus on ensuring their safety and lethality against the enemy," he said.
The efficiency and goal-oriented measures that Mattis is trying to instill mark a very different policy from the immense and unsubstantiated spending conducted by the Pentagon. Finally, we may be seeing a common-sense approach to military spending that not only reduces cost on the taxpayers but increases the effectiveness of our operations and our allies abroad.
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