MATTIS’ WAR ON WASTE: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is making the war on waste his own. Faced with a report last month from one of the Pentagon’s watchdogs that the U.S. may have wasted upwards of $28 million by supplying the Afghan army with custom woodland camouflage uniforms in a country where forests cover only 2.1 percent of the total land area, Mattis issued a blunt call to action to some of his deputies. The report, from the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction, said former Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak “ran across” the proprietary pattern on a website in 2007 and “liked what he saw.” Mattis reviewed the report and decidedly did not like what he saw, calling it “an example of a complacent mode of thinking.”
“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 of us 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,” Mattis wrote in a July 21 memo. “Cavalier or casually acquiescent decisions to spend taxpayer dollars in an ineffective and wasteful manner are not to recur,” Mattis said, and he made clear he didn’t want anyone making excuses or defending the wasteful spending. “Rather than minimize this report or excuse wasteful decisions, I expect all DoD organizations to use this error as a catalyst to bring to light wasteful practices — and take aggressive steps to end waste in our Department.”
