The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.

The presentation identified seventeen religious organizations in a slide titled “religious extremism.” They include al Qaeda, Hamas, the Filipino separatist group Abu Sayyaf, and the Ku Klux Klan, which the slide identifies as a Christian organization.

“Religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world,” the slide explains, in language that closely resembles the text of a Wikipedia page on “extremism.”

While outfits such as al Qaeda and the KKK are explicitly violent, the presentation also lists Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism as extremist groups.

Screenshot from DoD presentation

More than half of all Americans identify themselves as members of those two Christian denominations. National Public Radio reported in 2005 that 40 percent of active duty military personnel were evangelical Christians.

“Men and women of faith who have served the Army faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States,” said Col. Ron Crews, a retired Army chaplain and the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

“It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization,” Crews said in a news release.

Crews also criticized the presentation for citing the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to support its findings.

The SPLC has dubbed organizations “hate groups” for promoting Christian teachings on morality and sexuality.

A SPLC map of “hate groups” was used by a gunman in 2012 to target the conservative Family Research Council for its position on gay marriage. The gunman shot a security guard at the FRC’s headquarters. The SPLC has refused to comment on its role in the shooting.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, a Catholic organization that trains and endorses military priests and chaplains, said in a release that it was “astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist.”

The AMS called on the Pentagon “to review these materials and to ensure that tax-payer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform.”

An Army spokesperson said the presentation “was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.” The Army removed the offending slide after receiving complaints.

The person responsible for the presentation, the spokesperson said, “was not a subject matter expert, and produced the material after conducting Internet research.”

President Barack Obama is scheduled to posthumously award the Congressional Medal of Honor next week to Catholic Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun, who died in a North Korean military prison in 1951.

“It is hard to understand how a priest like Chaplain Kapaun can be honored in one breath while his faith-group is dishonored in another,” Crews said.

Widespread cuts to the defense budget have led DoD to impose furloughs on civilian employees, defer critical maintenance projects, and consider cutting benefits to military families.

Military employees who attended Hagel’s speech at the National Defense University did not hesitate to express their fears, pressing Hagel to explain why benefits and salaries have been placed on DoD’s chopping block.

“Why are we still furloughing?” asked one anxious civilian employee during a question and answer session with Hagel. “In case your advisers haven’t told you, it is affecting morale.”

“I wish I didn’t have to answer that question,” Hagel responded, saying the department is facing a $41 billion funding shortfall. “I wish we had other options.”

“We’ve tried to be fair and analyze where we take those cuts, and we take them because we have no choice, and trying to minimize the hurt and the pain that these cuts are causing across our entire range of responsibilities,” Hagel added. “Morale will be affected but [there are] tough decisions that will have to be made.”

“Our readiness and capabilities must come first,” Hagel said, adding that this was “not a good answer.”

As DoD grapples with nearly $500 billion in defense cuts known as sequestration, it will have to put military benefits and health packages on the chopping block, Hagel said.

“We need to challenge all past assumption and put everything on the table,” Hagel said. “It is already clear to me that any serious effort to reform or reshape our defense enterprise” must take a hard look at personnel costs, overhead costs, and health costs.

Another concerned attendee asked Hagel to explain how benefits, health care, and retirement packages will be impacted in coming years.

Hagel said while no immediate changes are planned in the short term, the DoD is examining ways to reform and restructure its benefits programs.

“They are looking at our ability … to sustain the commitments we have made to the men and women who join the military, as well as our civilians,” Hagel said.

“We make promises,” Hagel said. “This country makes commitments to people. We’ll honor those. But there’s not anyone here today who is not aware of that if you play this out [over the next several years] we’re not going to be able to sustain [current programs].”

“We’ll become essentially a transfer agency” if reforms are not implemented, Hagel added. “You can’t sustain those programs, those commitments. We know that. … The longer we defer these things the worse it’s going to be for all of us.”

Hagel went on to admit that sequestration “is already having a disrupting and potentially damaging impact on the readiness of the force,” as well as on maintenance and training programs.

The immediate cuts “led to far more abrupt and deeper reductions than were planned or expected,” Hagel said, admitting that the Pentagon is still “grappling with the serious and immediate” effects of sequestration.

Hagel discussed his vision for the American military.

U.S. forces “must be used judicially with a keen appreciation of its limits,” Hagel said. Many new global threats “do not lend themselves to being resolved by conventional military strength.”

“So our military must continue to adapt,” Hagel added. “We adapt in order to remain effective and relevant in the face of threats markedly different” than those of the past.

Pentagon leaders are “not just tweaking or chipping away at existing structures and practices but we’re necessarily fashioning entirely new ones,” Hagel said.

The threat posted by North Korea’s increasingly provocative military displays also came up.

Hagel noted that he “had a long conversation” Tuesday with China’s new defense minster to discuss the tensions with North Korea.

“North Korea is very good example of a common interest” for the United States and China. “Certainly the Chinese don’t want right now a complicated combustible situation to explode,” he said.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held the latest in several hearings to review executive agencies’ implementation of the recommendations by their inspectors general. This hearing focused on the Department of Defense and the Department Homeland Security.

The sequestration cuts loomed over the hearing, even though Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) noted at the outset that the hearing was not about the mandatory cuts that went into effect on March 1. Some congressmen sought to disparage the cuts while others looked to the agencies for better ways to manage the reductions.

Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.) zeroed in on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). He questioned Homeland Security Under Secretary for Management Rafael Borras about the department’s sizable payrolls and asked why it is not shuffling resources around to compensate for the budget cuts. TSA has almost 66,000 employees and 10,000 administrators, he said.

“This is one of the most shameful things I’ve seen any agency do, and you are bloated beyond control,” Mica said.

“We never intended Homeland Security to bloat to this extent,” he said.

Rep. John Tierney (D., Mass.) noted that Congress should have anticipated the massive growth of the TSA, but also said Congress should assume some responsibility.

“Congress spends the dime,” he said.

Mica also highlighted wasteful spending in his opening statement. He named several programs, including a $141,000 Chinese research program that “has to be absolutely essential to the continuation of the Republic as we know it.”

The congressmen also questioned Borras over DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s exaggerated statements about the sequester. She claimed that lines at major airports were 150 to 200 percent longer than usual, a claim Borras himself threw into doubt when he said there have not been any major effects of the sequestration thus far.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) questioned Borras about why Homeland Security released 10 “level one” offenders in preparation for the sequestration. Gowdy said it costs the department $122 per day to hold a level one offender, defined as an aggravated felon.

“Could you not find $12,000 somewhere else in the DHS budget other than releasing level one aggravated felons as part of your cost-saving measures?” Gowdy asked. Borras conceded, under pressure from Gowdy, that DHS had sufficient funds to pay for retaining these felons.

“Don’t act as if you didn’t have any choice but to release aggravated felons,” Gowdy said.

The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief told another House committee at about the same time on Tuesday that he could have sought other ways to save money besides releasing over 2,000 detained illegal immigrants, 10 of whom were the level one offenders that Gowdy brought up. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R. Ohio) criticized Homeland Security’s inadequate preparation for the sequester. The department waited about a year after the sequester became a possibility before starting to plan for it, and it still has not responded to an inquiry from Issa into how the committee and Congress can help the department better implement the budget cuts.

“It seems to me if you had 20 months to prepare for this, and the chairman asks you how we can help you better implement it, you should have something to email right away,” Jordan said.

Issa noted that the Department of Defense was the only agency to respond to his inquiry with specific suggestions.

The Department of Defense’s Joint Strike Fighter project also came under scrutiny in the hearing, especially from Democrats. Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (Md.) expressed indignation that the project would cost more than one trillion dollars over ten years.

Department of Defense Comptroller Robert Hale testified that the fighter is needed to update the military’s aging airplane fleet. Issa encouraged Hale to change the way the military approaches such appropriations in the future.

Hale also said some of Congress’ actions hurt the department’s effectiveness and ability to cut money. Continuing Resolutions prevent money from being appropriated in the right amounts, and Congress has overridden some of the department’s proposed cuts to programs.

The Department of Homeland Security faced scrutiny late last year for bloated and wasteful spending.

The report raised five “serious practical barriers, which if not approached in a deliberate manner, could adversely impact the health of our service members and degrade mission accomplishment.”

The largest difficulty yet to be overcome are the “physically demanding tasks” that the Department of Defense used to exclude “the vast majority of women” in combat roles.

“The elimination of gender-restricted assignment policies requires deliberate action,” the report says. Its proposed solution is the creation of “gender neutral-physical standards.”

“If we go forward with this, you are going to see serious physical injury increase,” said Mackubin Thomas Owens, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. “People in Afghanistan are carrying huge loads. We’re sending our troops places where they can only walk.”

A separate Congressional Research Service (CRS) report in December 2012 outlining the debate and history of women in combat roles elaborated on the term gender-neutral.

The use of the term “gender-neutral physical standards” raises questions depending on how it is defined. A plain reading of the term suggests that men and women would be required to meet the same physical standards in order to be similarly assigned. However, in the past, the Services have used this and similar terms to suggest that men and women must exert the same amount of energy in a particular task, regardless of the work that is actually accomplished by either. Hypothetically speaking, if a female soldier carries 70 pounds of equipment five miles and exerts the same effort as a male carrying 100 pounds of equipment the same distance, the differing standards could be viewed as ‘gender-neutral’ because both exerted the same amount of effort, with differing loads.

A source from the Department of Defense confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that the definition in the CRS report is accurate, and that the “the services are currently working on gender-neutral standards for certain things.”

“Notably absent in this language is any mention of the effects on military readiness such changes may produce,” according to the CRS report.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta assured the public during Thursday’s press conference that he was “not talking about reducing the qualifications for the job—if they can meet the qualifications for the job, then they should have the right to serve, regardless of creed or color or gender or sexual orientation.”

The Department of Defense will “continue to assess, develop and validate gender neutral standards so that we can start assigning personnel to previously closed occupations,” Gen. Martin Dempsey said during Thursday’s press conference.

Changes to military policy cannot be implemented until the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) reviews the changes.

“At the end of the day, none of this will be understood until 2016,” said an aide for Sen. James Inhofe (R. Okla.), a member of the SASC. “The Pentagon advises the committee of its changes, and gives the committee time to pass legislation. The committee has not been informed of any specific changes yet.”

Inhofe raised concerns in a press release.

“If necessary, we [the SASC] will be able to introduce legislation to stop any changes we believe to be detrimental to our fighting forces and their capabilities,” Inhofe said. “I suspect there will be cases where legislation becomes necessary.”

A Department of Defense source chose not to comment when asked about concerns SASC members may have about gender-neutral standards described in the February report.

“If you make the argument that it will make the Army better, that’s one thing,” Owens said. “But no one is talking about that.

The report found “that—absent policy changes—the federal government continues to face an unsustainable fiscal path.”

The GAO, which is an “independent, nonpartisan” government agency, released its annual report as Congress braces for a fight with President Barack Obama over the debt ceiling. Republicans are calling for spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. The president has vowed not to negotiate with Congress.

The report notes that while the government’s net operating cost was about $1.3 trillion in Fiscal Year 2012, its “unified budget deficit” was $1.1 trillion that year, “and as of September 30, 2012, debt held by the public had increased to 73 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).”

The report criticizes “material weaknesses” in the government’s financial reporting and highlights the Department of Defense’s messy accounting records, citing “serious financial management problems at DOD that have prevented its financial statements from being auditable.”

The GAO also criticized the government for overestimating the savings to entitlements, especially Medicare.

The report gave a “disclaimer of opinion” on the Statement of Social Insurance, which means that it did not accept the data in that part of the government’s finances. It cited “significant uncertainties … primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth.”

The GAO’s auditors “were unable to obtain sufficient evidence to support the amounts presented in the 2012, 2011, and 2010 Statements of Social Insurance and the 2012 and 2011 Statements of Changes in Social Insurance Amounts,” meaning that the Statement of Social Insurance was underestimating the cost of entitlement programs.

Even using the government’s numbers, entitlements will drive the deficit in the future. The GAO notes that more than 70 percent, or $27.2 trillion, of projected government deficit spending over the next 75 years will come from Medicare programs.

“Management has noted that actual future costs for Medicare are likely to exceed those shown by the current-law projections presented in the 2012, 2011, and 2010 Statements of Social Insurance,” the report said.

Robert Moffit, a domestic policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, distinguished between “current law” and “current policy” to explain the trouble in estimating the cost of Medicare.

Current law uses formulas to reduce the payments to physicians, for example, but Congress keeps blocking these reductions (which could be as high as 27 percent) with short-term legislation, Moffit said.

Likewise, Obamacare uses formulas that reduce payments to physicians and as a result reduce the cost of Medicare—cuts that many people, including Medicare’s own actuary and the Congressional Budget Office say are too deep and simply will not occur.

The uncertainty around the government’s projected cuts means that the deficit will likely rise, Moffit said.

“It’s probably not good news for the taxpayer,” he said.

Kevin Hassett, a former senior economist for the Federal Reserve and a budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute, echoed Moffit’s words, saying that entitlements are “exploding in a completely unsustainable way.”

According to the GAO’s 2011 report, the Defense Department’s net cost was $718.7 billion, while the Social Security Administration cost $782.5 billion and the Department of Health and Human Services cost $877.1 billion. 

“Simply put, the promised savings of Obamacare have not been realized, and GAO doubts those savings will ever be realized. Ultimately, we need to address entitlement reform,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Issa’s staff on the Oversight Committee noted that the government has never passed an audit, which means that the public does not know exactly how much the government spends or owes.

The inability to audit the Department of Defense’s finances have been a longstanding problem, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

“This is a problem endemic to the Department of Defense, partly out of its sheer size,” she said, noting that the department has two different budgets, one for a standing peacetime force and another for wartime expenditures.

The department has “only made incremental progress over the last several decades,” she said.

However, Eaglen said, congressional interest in the budget’s deficit has driven the department to make some progress on readying its financial records for an audit.

The Department of Defense has made more progress over the past five years than it had over the previous several decades, she said, adding that while its accounting is still highly problematic, relative to its past condition the “DOD has made legitimate progress.”

“The committee is looking at this, first to ensure that [the Defense Department] has done their due diligence and has followed the appropriate process,” a spokesman for committee chairman Buck McKeon (R., Calif.) told the Free Beacon. “Second, we are looking at potential impacts on DOD’s mission. Our close monitoring of the issue continues as DOD investigates possible implications of this deal.”

Chinese firm Wanxiang Group won a bid for high-grade lithium-ion battery producer A123 Systems in December, beating out the Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls. A123 Systems filed for bankruptcy in October after receiving $133 million of a $249 million stimulus grant from the federal government.

The Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) must approve the sale. According to people close to the issue, CFIUS could rule on whether to approve the Chinese purchase as early as the end of the month.

The Defense Department is also reviewing the sale’s implications. A former national security official said the department’s final recommendation rests with deputy secretary Ash Carter.

“Ash Carter is liked by and seen by many Republicans and conservatives as a pretty straight shooter and he can be a hero for his department if he tells Tim Geithner and the rest of the bureaucrats to disapprove this monstrosity,” the former national security official told the Free Beacon.

As previously reported by the Free Beacon, the sale of A123 Systems has raised national security concerns among many lawmakers and former defense officials who argue A123 Systems’ military and civilian technology can’t be separated.

The Department of Energy and Wanxiang say the firm’s military technology has been safely separated and sold to an American firm, Navitas.

However, opponents of the sale say the firm’s lithium-ion battery technology would still find its way into Chinese satellites and rockets and could potentially compromise U.S. electrical grids.

Two former chairmen of the House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton and Duncan Hunter, spoke out against the sale in a U.S. News & World Report op-ed Monday.

“If the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States fails to act this time, Americans may soon find themselves depending on China for the battery power it needs to rebuild our energy grid and being watched from above by Chinese spy satellites powered by technology we paid for and developed,” the former congressmen wrote.

Ike Skelton was a Democratic member of Congress and chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee from 2007 to 2010 and Duncan Hunter was a Republican member and chairman from 2002 to 2006.

More than two-dozen members of Congress oppose the deal. Organizations such as the Strategic Materials Advisory Council, a group of former American military and industry leaders, and the U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC), a national business group representing 2,000 small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, also oppose the deal.

The CFIUS committee’s annual report to Congress released in December warned “there is likely a coordinated strategy” by unnamed foreign powers “to acquire U.S. companies involved in research, development, or production of critical technologies for which the United States is a leading producer.”

The Defense Department and A123 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The donations, barred in 2009, were first reported in December. The committee is selling different levels of access to inaugural events to both individuals and corporations. At least one government watchdog group immediately questioned the decision, raising ethical concerns.

“The decision prioritizes a lavish celebration over the integrity of the office,” wrote John Wonderlich, policy director for the pro-government transparency Sunlight Foundation.

The committee’s website lists the donors but does not provide the amount of the donations.

Included in the list of donors is Microsoft, which scored a three-year contract with the Department of Defense on Friday to equip the Army, Air Force, and Defense Information Systems Agency. The deal will put Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 8, on about three-fourths of the department’s computers.

Microsoft’s announcement praised the deal as “the most comprehensive licensing agreement Microsoft Corp. has ever established with the U.S. Department of Defense.”

Sales of Windows 8 have languished below even the level of the widely panned Windows Vista. The Army and Air Force have been working with Microsoft to ensure that the new operating system is appropriately secure, Business Insider reported.

Financial Innovations, Inc., a marketing firm and promotional product developer, is another listed donor. The Obama campaign paid Financial Innovations nearly $1.8 million during the 2012 election cycle for campaign assistance.

Financial Innovations has deep ties to the Democratic Party: It provided merchandise for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid and has created Democratic merchandise since Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign.

Mark Weiner, the owner of Financial Innovations, has connections to the Democratic Party establishment beyond his business. He was a super delegate to the 2008 Democratic Convention, according to NPR, and he bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for the Obama campaign during this election.

Mobile communications company AT&T is also on the list of donors. AT&T ran into government opposition to its attempt to acquire T-Mobile in 2011, ultimately ending its attempt.

AT&T blamed the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission for the aborted acquisition. AT&T said the wireless industry needs more spectrum, a problem that the merger would try to solve.

“In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled,” AT&T said in a statement at the time.

It is unclear whether AT&T will try to acquire T-Mobile or another company again, but it has strong connections to the administration. John Stankey, AT&T’s group president and chief strategy officer, is a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

The committee also lists Centene Corporation, a healthcare service provider as a donor. Centene is expected to benefit from the expansion of Medicaid contained in Obamacare, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch predicted that it would become a target for other companies to acquire because of its large share in that government program.

“Regardless of whether Centene is acquired, its Medicaid business should continue to expand,” reported the Dispatch.

The committee will release the amounts of the donations within 90 days of the inauguration, in accordance with FEC rules.

The committee is accepting corporate donations “to help cover the cost of the public events” after “the most expensive presidential campaign in history,” wrote committee spokesman Cameron French.

“The PIC will not be accepting donations from lobbyists or PACs and will not be entering into any sponsorship agreements with individuals or corporations,” he wrote. “To ensure continued transparency, all names of donors will be posted to a regularly updated website.”

The Sunlight Foundation bemoaned the difference in transparency between 2009 and this year after the names were released, noting multiple changes in the committee’s disclosure methods.

Panetta addressed questions about the sequestration set to take effect Jan. 2, 2013, if Congress and the president cannot reach a deal on the fiscal cliff.

“There is no reason why both sides should not be able to come together and prevent [sequestration],” Panetta said in the letter.

The sequestration would require the department to “operate under reduced funding levels for an extended period of time.” While military personnel funding is exempt from sequestration, civilian employees could be affected.

Panetta said he does not expect dramatic changes if sequestration occurs but warned employees that furlough or other personnel action could become necessary.

Hagel immediately drew a frosty reception from observers who criticized him for advocating in favor of direct unconditional talks with Iran and for backing sizable cuts to the defense budget.

Those who have worked with Hagel and have an intimate knowledge of his managerial style also expressed concerns about his possible appointment.

Sources on Capitol Hill told the Free Beacon that opposition to Hagel reaches all the way to the Embassy of Israel, which is said to have quietly expressed concern about the former senator.

“Our office has talked with the Israel embassy who says their policy is to support whatever the president wants in his cabinet and would not provide further comment,” one Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “With a little prodding, our contact at the embassy did allude to their concern for Hagel’s nomination.”

An Israeli embassy spokesman declined comment.

Hagel has drawn additional heat from insiders who claim he lacks the credentials needed to manage a department as large and essential as the Pentagon.

“Yes, Hagel has crazy positions on several key issues. Yes, Hagel has said things that are borderline anti-Semitism. Yes, Hagel wants to gut the Pentagon’s budget. But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s bad to his staff,” said a senior Republican Senate aide who has close ties to former Hagel staffers.

“Hagel was known for turning over staff every few weeks—within a year’s time he could have an entirely new office because nobody wanted to work for him,” said the source. “You have to wonder how a man who couldn’t run a Senate office is going to be able to run an entire bureaucracy.”

Others familiar with Hagel’s 12 year tenure in the Senate said he routinely intimidated staff and experienced frequent turnover.

“Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq. “He might get away with that when it comes to staffers in their 20s, but that sort of personality is going to go over like a ton of bricks at the Pentagon.”

Multiple sources corroborated this view of Hagel.

“As a manager, he was angry, accusatory, petulant,” said one source familiar with his work on Capitol Hill. “He couldn’t keep his staff.”

“I remember him accusing one of his staffers of being ‘f—ing stupid’ to his face,” recalled the source who added that Hagel typically surrounded himself with those “who basically hate Republicans.”

Sources expressed concern about such behavior should Hagel be nominated for the defense post. With competing military and civilian interests vying for supremacy, the department requires a skilled manager, sources said.

“The Pentagon requires strong civilian control,” a senior aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the Free Beacon. “It’s already swung back in favor of the military over the past five years. A new secretary of defense should push it back in its rightful place, but it’s doubtful Hagel would be that guy.”

“It’s not clear that [Hagel] has the standing, the managerial prowess, or the willingness to gore some oxen,” said the source.

One senior Bush administration official warned that Hagel is ill informed about many critical foreign policy matters.

“He’s not someone who’s shown a lot of expertise on these issues,” said the source, referencing a recent Washington Post editorial excoriating Hagel’s record. “That [op-ed] was extraordinary.”

“Only in Washington,” the official added, “can someone like [Hagel] be seen as a heavy weight. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

Hagel is likely viewed positively by the administration mainly because he is a Republican who often criticizes his own party, the source said.

“He’ll dance to a tune played by the White House,” said the former official. “That I think is the real problem.”

As lawmakers consider a deal to avoid sweeping budgets cuts and tax hikes, Hagel’s support for slashing spending at the Pentagon has irked many defense hawks.

“This is a time when a secretary of defense needs to be raising hell about the sequestration cuts,” said the Rumsfeld aide. “It’s not clear that Hagel has any interest in picking that fight.”

Hagel’s reluctance to chastise Iran also remains a central concern.

As chief of the Pentagon it is expected he would avoid planning for a military intervention should Tehran refuse to end its clandestine nuclear enrichment program.

“The military brass is already reluctant to offer up any military options on Iran even though it’s their job to have something on the books and to leave the options of the commander in chief open,” said the Rumsfeld aide. “Hagel will only reinforce these worrisome tendencies.”

“Chances are he’ll view any legitimate effort to talk about military options with Iran as some plot by the ‘Israel Lobby’ to box him in,” the source said.

Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy, is currently viewed as the frontrunner for the post.

“She will be the likely candidate as there has been criticism from liberals for possibly replacing a female secretary of state with a male, and [Flournoy would be] the first woman secretary of defense,” said one senior Senate aide with knowledge of the process. “Hagel could have been a test by the president—if Hagel’s positions could be supported then likely so would Flournoy.”

The Coburn report details nearly $68 billion in defense spending that appears to have little to do with national defense and instead focuses on issues ranging from beef jerky to studies of flying dinosaurs. Included in the report is $700 million in green energy initiatives.

“The Department of Defense launched more than 100 renewable energy-related initiatives in 2010, more than any other federal agency including the Department of Energy,” the report says. “Many of these DOD renewable energy projects were so poorly planned, they failed to be cost effective or even produce power, wasting millions of national security dollars.”

The federal government launched 679 renewable energy initiatives in 2010. The DoD accounted for 116 initiatives while the DOE started less than 100.

The report showcases initiatives it claims were poorly planned and executed.

For example, the report notes a $14 million Air Force construction project to convert three Alaskan radar stations from diesel to wind energy. The project was begun without any assurances it was properly planned or would result in any cost savings.

The Navy is also spending $170 million to convert parts of its fleet to algae-based biofuel, which currently costs $15 a gallon or four times the cost of conventional fuel.

The Defense Department spends more than $15 billion on energy annually and is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government. Alternative fuel could potentially save taxpayers significant amounts of money.

“The DoD budget is aligned to strategic priorities we have identified to keep America safe and maintain the strongest military in the world,” a Defense Department spokesperson wrote in an email to the Free Beacon. “Over the past several years we have redoubled our efforts to make better use of the taxpayer’s defense dollar and meet our fiscal responsibilities.”

Project On Government Oversight national security investigator Ben Freeman said there is already an agency better equipped to study alternative energy: The Department of Energy.

“From a taxpayer’s perspective, I think we’d like to see the DOD reduce fuel costs, but I’m not sure they’re the best ones to investigate that,” Freeman said.

“The Department of Defense should be forced to explain in detail how these programs should not be primarily funded and administered by the Department of Energy,” the Coburn report says.

The Coburn report also notes there is no oversight in place to ensure these initiatives are not duplicative.

A previous Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that “there is currently no comprehensive inventory of which federal agencies are implementing renewable energy-related initiatives and the types of initiatives they are implementing.

“In light of efforts to balance the federal budget and target spending on activities that will most effectively meet national needs, the lack of available information on agencies’ renewable energy initiatives has further raised congressional concerns about the ability to identify whether efforts are fragmented, duplicative, or operating at cross-purposes,” the GAO report said.

Freeman said that even close watchers of Pentagon spending might find parts of the Coburn report shocking.

“I study the DoD in and out and even I hadn’t heard of some of this stuff,” Freeman said. “You just sort of scratch your head and ask why we’re spending money on fish studies and beef jerky.”