Shachtman: Pentagon's Data Meltdown

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

This problem has been going on administration to administration. The 
NRC has done endless studies. Problem still exists.

Dave

Begin forwarded message:

From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com>
Date: July 8, 2004 8:53:41 PM EDT
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Shachtman: Pentagon's Data Meltdown

From Defensetech -- http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001002.html

PENTAGON'S DATA MELTDOWN
by Noah Shachtman

There's a reason why the Pentagon bought its chem-bio suits for $200 
each -- and then sold them on the Internet for $3 a pop.

There's a reason why 450 out of 481 National Guardsmen tracked by 
Congress have had problems with their paychecks.

And there's a reason why defense contractors have been able to weasle 
out of $100 million or more in unpaid taxes.

It's all because the Pentagon is relying on a tangle of outdated 
computer systems to track its supplies, finances, and people, according 
to a new Congressional report. Despite a $19 billion annual budget and 
more than 2000 different databases to do the job, the Defense 
Department can't figure out what it has, or how it spends its money.

These "fundamentally flawed business systems" are leaving the Pentagon 
wide open to "fraud, waste and abuse," Congress' investigators say. And 
they're making soldiers' lives a whole lot more difficult in the 
process.

My Wired News article has details.

THERE'S MORE: The Congressional report doesn't aggressively make the 
connection between the Pentagon's screwy computers and the shortages of 
ammunition and supplies during the Iraq invasion. But it takes only the 
smallest of speculative hops to get from one to the next.

In fact, Fred Kaplan notes in Slate, if the Army's supply problem had 
gotten much worse, the whole Iraq operation would have ground to a 
sputtering halt.

Relying on a recent Army report, he notes that


"Literally every" commander in the 3rd Infantry Divisionthe Army unit 
that swept up the desert to Baghdadtold the study group that, without 
more spare parts, "he could not have continued offensive operations for 
another two weeks."

"Fortunately," the report goes on, "major combat operations ended 
before the failure of the parts distribution system affected operations 
in a meaningful way."

Other logistical supplies were distributed at "just barely above 
subsistence levels." The supply of food "barely met demand"; some 
soldiers occasionally went without MREs. Petroleum supplies often had 
to be foraged and drained from Iraqi vehicles. Engineering explosives 
were often captured from Iraqi troops or improvised. On a few 
occasions, the 3rd Infantry had to ask the 101st Airborne Division for 
extra ammunition. The medical supply system "failed." There were not 
enough trucks; there was no single cargo distribution manager.


"The report's authors don't ascribe blame," Kaplan notes. But it's 
pretty obvious where at least some of the fault lies: in the creaky, 
isolated, duplicative computer systems in the bowels of the Pentagon.

AND MORE: "The real cost is to the people that have to work in these 
situations, knowing that things could be done better but never will 
be," says reader SA, a former Canadian government worker. "When a 
person gets up every day, knowing that they won't be able to do the job 
they were hired for because 90% of their day is taken up checking the 
faulty math of the computer system, re-inputing data that disappears, 
fixing problems that never should have happened and printing out 
information from one system and typing it into another, well, it starts 
to get to you after a while."

AND MORE: "I suspect that we're not really serious about fixing this 
due to the seniority of the rice bowls that would likely wind up having 
to be kicked over. And also because wartime logistics is hard due to 
it's extremely low redictability and peacetime operations just do not 
prepare for it adequately," says Defense Tech reader JA, who works in 
the Defense Department.

Excellence in logistics in peacetime will not get you promoted, 
although beefing about logistics deficiencies can be detrimental to 
one's career prospects," he adds, offering one of those 
it'd-be-hilarious-if-it-wasn't-so-awful stories:


My unit at the time participated in a NATO exercise in the early 80's 
on the North German Plain and was the first time since the '50's that 
US combat units exercised with NORTHAG. Unfortunately, no one saw fit 
to explain to the Germans that they'd be supplying us with rations and 
fuel and after 3 days or so the cav troop that I was part of was pretty 
well scattered across significant acreage out of fuel and low on chow 
(we had been told beforehand to not stock up on pogey bait as the 
German army was going to hook us up for food. Needless to say we took 
this as a red flag warning and not only stocked up, stripping the PX at 
the kaserne, but also staged a run on the local American Express 
denuding it of local currency).

The Stars & Stripes interviewed our troop commander asking him to 
expound on the glories of interoperability within NATO and he told them 
what he really thought. He was replaced as our commander shortly 
following this, well short of what might have been considered a more 
normal command tour length.

www.defensetech.org

-------------------
 "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
   "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson
   "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from 
magic"
    -- Arthur C. Clarke
    "You Gotta Believe" - Frank "Tug" McGraw (1944 - 2004 RIP)

                          John F. McMullen
   johnmac () acm org johnmac () computer org johnmac () m-net arbornet org
         johnmac () tmail com johnmac () panix com johnmac () echonyc com
           jmcmullen () monroecollege edu johnmac () alumni iona edu
              ICQ: 4368412 Skype, AIM & Yahoo Messenger: johnmac13
                  http://www.westnet.com/~observer

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