Whistleblowing at the Pentagon - Protections for the Brave

With whistleblowing in Washington now being headline news, a look at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) publication "Whistleblower Protection" is timely.  This report which provides taxpayers and politicians with an analysis of the Department of Defense's actions to improve both case timelines of issues raised and safeguard the confidentiality of whistleblowers who raise complaints about the Department of Defense.  In general, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DODIG) and the military service offices of the Inspector General (IG) met some but not all of the fiscal year 2018 timeliness and quality goals for handling the massive number of whistleblower complaints that were made throughout the year.

Here is a graphic showing how the Department of Defense processes whistleblower complaints:

Note that complaints about the Department of Defense come in from two sources; the DOD hotline which passed complains to DODIG and the military service IG hotline which passes complaints to the military service inspector general.

Here is a table showing the protections that are in place for civilian, contractor and military personnel whistleblowers at the Department of Defense:

These protections have been put into place to encourage whistleblowers to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisal.  Protection for whistleblowers' confidentiality is codified in federal law under the Inspector General Act of 1978 which restricts both DODIG and the Inspector General from disclosing a whistleblower's identity without the consent of the whistleblower unless it is unavoidable.

In fiscal 2018, DODIG's hotline received 12,470 contacts from potential whistleblowers related to fraud, waste, abuse employee misconduct or other violations.  Of these, 3,872 were referred to other entities for inquiry, unfortunately, as you will see in this posting, many of these will remain unresolved.  Over the past five years, the number of whistleblower reprisal cases reported by DODIG increased from 1,013 to 2,002, an increase of 98 percent.  Between the years 2013 and 2018, a total of 95,613 complaints with DODIG were registered.  Let's put that number into context -  5 years with a forty hour work week and a 48 week work year results in a total of 9600 working hours.  If you divide the number of working hours in a five year period into the 95,613 complaints, it works out to just under ten complaints every working hour. 

Let's look at the timeliness of DODIG's response to whistleblower allegations, paying particular attention to the investigations that senior official misconduct and what percentage of those complaints were handled in a timely fashion:

During fiscal 2018, DODIG did close 73 investigations including 13 senior official misconduct cases and 60 military, contractor and civilian reprisal cases leaving 85 percent of all cases not meeting the timeliness goals.  There are several reasons for DODIG's inability to meet its timeliness goals including the assumption of all sexual assault victim reprisal cases, the number of high-priority senior official cases concurrently open and the increasing scope and complexity of investigations.

Here is a graphic showing how many days it took for DODIG to complete its investigations of senior official misconduct and military, contractor and civilian reprisal cases for fiscal 2018:

Here is a graphic showing the timeliness of military service Inspector General senior official misconduct and reprisal investigation for the four branches of the military:

As you can see, only the Marine Corps Inspector General met to 180 timeliness goal and only for investigations involving misconduct by senior Marine Corps officials.

Let's take a brief look at issues of whistleblower confidentiality with one of the biggest problems being that whistleblower's data is available to personnel without a need to know.  Here is a table showing the accessibility issues identified by DODIG:

Here is a table showing the accessibility issues identified by military service Inspector Generals:

Between 2013 and 2018, DODIG identified 8 substantiated violations of whistleblower confidentiality and the Army IG identified 6 substantiated violations of whistleblower confidentiality.  The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps Inspector Generals were unable to provide data for such incidents since incidents of this type are not tracked.  Interestingly, in a survey of DODIG employees, 17 percent of respondents were aware that the identity of a complainant was avoidably disclosed by a fellow employee to an organization or individual without a need to know.  It's obvious that in both cases, employees access to sensitive whistleblower's information is not restricted to the point where confidentiality is maintained.

Let's close with this, keeping in mind that analysis suggests that the Department of Defense is unable to account for $21 trillion of taxpayers' money:

The existence of a Department of Defense hotline for reporting complaints is an interesting idea, however, the GAO report suggests that very few of these reports by whistleblowers are handled in a timely fashion and that whistleblowers face risks when reporting misdeeds by their employer and the military hierarchy.  As well, according to another GAO report from fiscal 2015, 1,094 out of 1,197 or 91 percent of whistleblowers' complaints closed by DODIG between fiscal 2013 and 2015 were closed without any investigation.  This suggests that the Department of Defense is either ill-prepared or doesn't care about any complaints that it receives about its operations, spending or senior personnel. 

The Pentagon's Evolving Mission

A Trump Administration era change to the United States Department of Defense website provides us with an interesting insight into the minds that control the world's most powerful global police force.

On every page of the Department's website you will find this new mission statement located at the bottom left-hand corner of the webpage:

However, on the Department's "About" webpage, you find the original DoD mission as shown here:

Interestingly enough, the old and new missions even show up on the same "About" webpage, noting that the page has not been updated since January 27, 2017:

These two mission statements bear repeating:

New mission:

"The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our country and sustain American influence abroad."

Old mission:

"The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country."

Note the difference?  It is no longer the job of the Department of Defense to "deter war", a rather ominous approach to protecting the American homeland and Washington's global reach.

Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, here's the same Department of Defense "About" webpage from December 2012 under the Obama Administration:

Here's the Department of Defense "About" page from December 2001 showing the Department's mission under the Bush II Administration when the DoD's web presence was called "DefenseLINK":

Lastly, here's the Department of Defense "About" page from February 1999 showing the Department's mission under the Clinton Administration:

Given October 2017 memorandum from Defense Secretary James Mattis to all Department of Defense staff:

...and, in particular, this quote:

"We are a Department of war"

...we shouldn't be terribly surprised that the mission of the Department of Defense has become less "kindly" and more lethal to anyone who dares to threaten the security of the United States and its control over the world.

The Department of Defense and Saving Taxpayers' Money

We all know that the United States has a significant military presence around the world, however, a recent estimate by the current Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, suggests that there may be ways of reducing taxpayers' exposure to maintaining the military's global inventory.  Unfortunately for American taxpayers, little of that saving will end up reducing the Pentagon's overall spending patterns.

Let's look at some background first.  According to the most recent version of the Base Structure Report - Fiscal Year 2015 issued by the  Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, the Department of Defense is one of the federal government's larger holders of real estate, managing a global real estate portfolio that consists of the following:

- 561,975 assets (buildings, structures and linear structures) - these include hospital and medical facilities, administrative facilities, operating and training facilities, maintenance and production facilities, research and development facilities, residential facilities of all types and supply facilities

- these facilities are located on 4855 sites around the globe

- these sites cover an area over 24.9 million acres

To qualify as an individual entry into the Base Structure Report, a site located in the United States must be larger than 10 acres in size and have a Plant Replacement Value greater than $10 million.  Sites located in foreign countries must be larger than 10 acres in size or have a Plant Replacement Value greater than $10 million.

Installations are defined as a military base, camp, post, station, yard, centre, homeport facility or any other activity undertaken under the auspices of the Department of Defense including leased space that  supports DoD activities.  Here is a table showing the number of active installations controlled by each branch of the U.S. military:

Here is a graphic showing the geographical distribution of Department of Defense sites around the world:

Of the 4855 sites, 4154 are located in the United States, 114 are located in American territories, 181 are located in Germany, 122 are located in Japan and 83 are located in South Korea.

Here is a table that breaks down the Department of Defense physical assets into buildings, structures and linear structures and assesses a plant replacement value to each (in billions of dollars):

The total replacement value for the 276,770 buildings, structures and linear structures owned by the Department of Defense is $879.37 billion with buildings being worth a total of $585.07 billion, structures being worth a total of $131.22 billion and linear structures being worth a total of $163.08 billion.

Lastly, here is an inventory of land controlled by the Department of Defense for each branch of the U.S. military:

As you can see from the Base Structure Report for 2015, the Department of Defense has a very extensive real estate portfolio that is worth roughly a trillion dollars when the value of land is included.  Obviously, all of this infrastructure costs untold tax dollars to maintain and upgrade.

A recent letter from Defense Secretary Mattis to William Thornberry, Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services suggests that the DoD has excess infrastructure capacity as shown here:

In the October 2017 Department of Defense Infrastructure Capacity report, we find the following table listing the infrastructure excess capacity by service:

Using 32 metrics of infrastructure, the report found that when comparing base loading in 1989 to base loading in 2019, the Department of Defense had 22 percent excess infrastructure capacity compared to projected fiscal year 2019 force levels. 

While you might think that the savings realized by shuttering 22 percent of the excess infrastructure capacity means that the Department of Defense's budget would decline, such is not the case.  In the report, we find the following:

"The strategic environment has undergone fundamental changes.  In spite of our unique position as a global power with worldwide interests and military capabilities this change has redefined the range of challenges we must confront.  Uncertainty is inherent in assessing future threats.  Therefore, the potential for surprise should inform all planning efforts. 

In general, opponents understand they cannot conventionally match U.S. military power.  Therefore, they will take time to identify U.S. vulnerabilities and act accordingly.  We expect current and future adversaries, both state and non-state, will adopt a range of asymmetric and grand strategic capabilities and methods intended to circumvent our military advantages.  Future opponents will seek to engage us by acting both indirectly and directly along a vast spectrum of domains, including cyber, economic, space, air, land, sea, and undersea.  Above all, the enemy will seek to do the most harm with the least amount of risk.  

Our principal challenges are represented by an array of traditional, irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive methods and capabilities employed by state and non-state actors.  Combined, these reflect the four persistent challenges we must prevail against in this uncertain era.  There are often no hard boundaries distinguishing one of these categories from another.  While the capabilities and methods within each differ, the most dangerous circumstances are those in which we are facing, or will face, multiple challenges simultaneously."

In the final line of the report we find this:

"The longer authorization (to reduce spending on infrastructure) is delayed, the longer the Department will be forced to expend valuable resources on unnecessary facilities instead of weapons systems, readiness, and other national security priorities." (my bold)

As stated in his letter to the House Committee on Armed Services, the new methods of warfare and technologies that have been adapted by the U.S. military to fight wars are going to consume all of the savings gained by reducing excess infrastructure, shifting fiscal resources from buildings, structures and linear structures to battle readiness.  Basically, U.S. taxpayers can pretty well assure themselves that the Pentagon's spending is going nowhere but up and that the latest moves to reduce spending will just see the savings funnelled elsewhere in the "Pentagon's world".