A Defense Department study that revealed $125 billion in administrative waste at the Pentagon was suppressed by senior officials who worried Congress would slash the defense budget, the Washington Post reported Monday night.
The January 2015 report outlined "a clear path" that would have saved the Defense Department $125 billion over the next five years by consolidating the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, limiting its use of contractors, and improving its use of information technology.
The Defense Business Board commissioned the report last year with the aim to make the department more efficient so it could reinvest savings into combat power. When the study ended up revealing far more excess spending than expected, senior officials scrapped the project and buried the results.
The study disclosed that the Pentagon was spending nearly a quarter of its $580 billion budget on office operations, including human resources and property management. The report also found that the Defense Department was employing more than a million people in desk jobs for its business operations, nearly matching the 1.3 million troops on active duty.
Some Pentagon leaders expressed concerns that the findings would undermine their claims that years of budget sequestration had left the military short of funds and motivate Congress to impose steeper defense cuts.
Department officials ultimately decided to place security restrictions on the study's data and removed a 77-page summary report from its website.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, the Pentagon's second-highest-ranking official, brushed aside the $125 billion savings proposal as "unrealistic."
"There is this meme that we're some bloated, giant organization," Work told the Post. "Although there is a little bit of truth in that ... I think it vastly overstates what's really going on."