MAYBE WE SHOULD PRIVATIZE THE PENTAGON

Everybody agrees that Social Security will be in deep trouble 37 years from now, or in the year 2042. That’s the reason President Bush says we should privatize now. He seems to feel that privatization will save Social Security from the perils of 2042.

But what I do not understand in his urgency over Social Security is the fact that another large federal institution is in terrible trouble right now. That institution is the Pentagon. If Social Security will be in deep difficulty in 2042, the Pentagon is even more trouble, right now in 2005. The whole five-sided building seems to be sinking under the weight of armchair generals who seem incapable of buying the right supplies for our troops in a timely manner. This inability to properly supply our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq is costing lives "big time" (as Vice President Cheney likes to say). The situation is so bad, according to an internal study, that we ought to forget about Social Security and immediately privatize the Pentagon, something our allies in Iraq are already doing.

If you think this is silly, consider the findings of the Inspector General’s April 2004 report on Pentagon procurement and supply practices.

Early in the Iraqi war, Army General Richard A. Cody decided that the troops in Iraq had all the body armor they needed and proceeded to cancel orders for bulletproof vests. This decision left about 50,000 "non-front line" soldiers unprotected right as the insurgents were mounting increasingly deadly attacks against our supply and transport troops. It has long been an axiom that "Generals always prepare for the last war." But General Cody’s vision didn’t plan for the last war of invasion, Vietnam, where there were no lines and the marine cooks at Khe Sahn could be as easily killed as riflemen. And he didn’t retreat all the way back to Korea, where front lines evaporated in the Inchon landing and the later Chinese counterattack. And General Cody did not go back to World War II, where lines tended to evaporate on Guadalcanal and in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge. No, the redoubtable General Cody showed a vision that was far more appropriate for planning for the trench warfare and fixed lines of World War I. General Cody’s decision-making about bulletproof vests showed that his planning was firmly rooted on the conditions of 1918, and not 2005.

Finally realizing that all kinds of soldiers were being killed for lack of body armor, General Cody placed a new order for protective vests. With soldiers dying daily, how quickly did the Pentagon respond? With mounds of paperwork to produce and jillions of tiers of approvals to obtain, the Pentagon didn’t even begin to get new body armor to the troops in Iraq until 167 days had evaporated. During that five-month period, a great deal of unprotected American blood was needlessly spilled. But many troops remained unequipped as the Pentagon continued to misfire, awarding body armor plate production in fits and starts, instead of going to full-scale mobilization. Even worse, one contract was awarded to a firm that had never produced anything. It attempted to produce body armor for a year before failing abjectly and going out of business.

The armchair generals in the Pentagon have been quoted as shrugging off the problem with excuses, which suggests that paperwork is more important than the lives of our military. In the Pentagon, nobody gets penalized when poor procurement and supply practices result in needless casualties. But forget about a signature – and watch out. Your career could end abruptly.

At the same time the Pentagon was playing Keystone Kops with body armor, our allies in Iraq were pressuring the Pentagon to supply protective vests for their troops. After being brushed off by American generals, our allies decided to privatize their approach to procurement and went directly to a supplier in Michigan who delivered 9,400 sets of body armor to allied troops in just 12 days.

The Inspector General’s report goes on to describe foul-up after foul-up in other areas of procurement. Troops are still scrambling and scavenging to find armor for our ill-equipped transport vehicles. Electronic devices which would prevent roadside bombs from exploding were available long before the war started, but Pentagon planners didn’t buy any to protect American troops and convoys.

Secretary Rumsfeld has been trying to make our forces lighter and faster. But that will prove to be an impossibility with an ever fatter and slower Pentagon in charge of planning and procurement. It’s hard to have a lightning striking field force if it takes the Pentagon 24 months to gear up supply – the current approved standard. It’s totally impossible when Pentagon generals plan according the dictates of long-ago wars.

General Cody, among others, really messed up and cost many American lives. How did the Pentagon and Defense Department punish him? The usual way: He was promoted to Army Vice Chief of Staff.

So, President Bush, forget Social Security, let’s privatize the Pentagon instead. The problems are far more urgent.