DIFFICULT CHOICES Perry, seated to President Clinton’s left, and other members of the Clinton cabinet—includ- ing, clockwise from left, U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair- man Gen. John M. Shalikashvili—meet in the White House Situation Room in March 1994 to discuss issues related to the conflict in Bosnia. The U.S. sent roughly 25,000 troops to Bosnia, and the decision to deploy them weighed heav- ily on Perry. (Image courtesy of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library)
So, I’m not one who would tend to blame the Congress as the primary problem. I think they contribute, but they’re not the largest part of the problems.
Army AL&T: In your view, what is the biggest problem?
Perry: Te biggest problem is we’re undertaking very big, complex and expensive systems over many, many years, and we have a changing cast of characters as we go through that process, so it’s not a formula for efficiency and we don’t really get much efficiency. I think, in general, our system is not corrupt, which is good, but it’s inefficient, which is not good.
Army AL&T: About that inefficiency, we’ve heard again and again about the government program management capacity and the structure of the mili- tary and the inadequacy of training. Dr. J. Ronald Fox, in our interview with him, told us that one of the problems is the failure of most program managers (PMs) to have a competency in quantitative analysis, and that the lack of appropriate training makes PMs woefully outgunned. (See related story, “ ‘Groundhog Day’ All Over Again,” Page 14.) Is that part of what you’re talking about with the inefficiencies?
Perry: Yes, it is. Tese are long-term pro- grams. People rotate in and out of them. It has to do with the fact that we’re look- ing at eight-, nine- and 10-year programs. So, as people rotate in and out, you obvi- ously have an inefficiency because of that. Tat doesn’t happen in industry, but it does happen in the government. We had looked a few times at fixing that prob- lem. Years ago when I was the acquisition director, we had a program manager for the joint cruise missile program, for example, Rear Adm. Walter Locke, who was a longtime professional in program management. And he did a superb job, I think, of managing that program.
So there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the quality of the people we get for this. It’s just that we do rotate them in and out of the jobs much too often. When we have not done that, as in the case of Admiral Locke and Rear Adm. Wayne Meyer, we got a superlative job of program management—equal to,
if
not better than, their counterparts in industry.
So I think we have demonstrated we can do it on occasion, but that ... does take people professionally dedicated to program management, not the people rotating in and out of it.
Army AL&T: In your view, what is driv- ing acquisition reform today? Do you see parallels between what you were attempt- ing in your reform efforts and what Secretary Ash Carter is attempting now?
Perry: I don’t think I’m enough of an authority on what’s [going on now] to comment in an informed way about it, but [from] what I know about it, I would say it’s being driven by the same concerns and being driven by the same ideas for reform. In fact, Dr. Carter and I have worked together in this field on acquisi- tion reform, both back when I was the [secretary]. Even though he was not the acquisition director, he and I had worked together before we both went into gov- ernment on an acquisition reform study. I would not be surprised to see him pursu- ing some of the same ideas I was trying to pursue as the secretary.
Army AL&T: Is it fair to say you wanted to get rid of military spec?
Perry: I didn’t want to get rid of it. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t used in cases where it wasn’t necessary. We know that whenever we can buy over the counter equipment, we can get a better deal on it. Terefore, the important thing was not to demand the military spec
ASC.ARMY.MIL 103
CRITICAL THINKING
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