Leading Senate Democrat requests copy of Pentagon waste report

Washington, D.C. – A leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee has requested a copy of a Pentagon report that identified $125 billion in administrative waste.

The 2015 report, first identified in a report by The Washington Post, purportedly contains recommendations to streamline and reduce the Department of Defense’s administrative bureaucracy and to reinvest savings in modernization efforts and combat capabilities. According to the Washington Post, the department buried the report – which was produced by the Defense Business Board and McKinsey and Company – in an attempt to avoid further budget cuts.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) requested a detailed analysis of the report in a letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work.

“I believe it is in our best interest to find savings throughout DOD and develop an actionable plan to invest these funds in critical areas such as readiness and modernization,” Shaheen wrote. “Given these challenges and fiscal uncertainty, our military is forced to make difficult choices between short-term and long-term priorities putting our military at risk.”

SASC hopes to use the Pentagon report to develop “actionable proposals” in the next session of Congress, the senator added.

As the Defense Department has not made the report public, it could not be determined if the department identified specific cuts to Special Operations Command.

Featured image courtesy of HNGN.com.