GAO-05-200, Military Personnel: DOD Needs to Conduct a Data-Driven Analysis of Active Military Personnel Levels Required to Implement the Defense Strategy


This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-05-200 
entitled 'Military Personnel: DOD Needs to Conduct a Data-Driven 
Analysis of Active Military Personnel Levels Required to Implement the 
Defense Strategy' which was released on February 2, 2005.

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part 
of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every 
attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of 
the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text 
descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the 
end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided 
but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed 
version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic 
replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail 
your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this 
document to Webmaster@gao.gov.

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately.

Report to Congressional Committees:

United States Government Accountability Office:

GAO:

February 2005:

Military Personnel:

DOD Needs to Conduct a Data-Driven Analysis of Active Military 
Personnel Levels Required to Implement the Defense Strategy:

GAO-05-200:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-05-200, a report to congressional committees: 

Why GAO Did This Study:

Congress recently increased active military personnel levels for the 
Army and the Marine Corps. The Secretary of Defense has undertaken 
initiatives to use military personnel more efficiently such as 
rebalancing high-demand skills between active and reserve components. 
In view of concerns about active personnel, GAO reviewed the ways in 
which the Department of Defense (DOD) determines personnel requirements 
and is managing initiatives to assign a greater proportion of active 
personnel to warfigthing duties. GAO assessed the extent to which the 
Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) (1) has conducted a data-based 
analysis of active military personnel needed to implement the national 
defense strategy and (2) has a plan for making more efficient use of 
active military personnel and evaluating the plan’s results. 

What GAO Found:

Our prior work has shown that valid and reliable data about the number 
of employees required to meet an agency’s needs are critical because 
human capital shortfalls can threaten the agency’s ability to perform 
missions efficiently and effectively. OSD provides policy and budget 
guidance on active personnel levels and has taken some steps toward 
rebalancing skills between active and reserve components, but it has 
not conducted a comprehensive, data-driven analysis to assess the 
number of active personnel needed to implement the defense strategy. A 
key reason why it has not conducted such a comprehensive analysis is 
that OSD has focused on limiting personnel costs in order to fund 
competing priorities, such as transformation. OSD conducts some 
analyses of active personnel, such as monitoring actual personnel 
levels, and the services have processes for allocating the active 
personnel they are authorized to key missions. However, OSD does not 
systematically review the services’ processes to ensure that decisions 
about active personnel levels are linked to the defense strategy and 
provide required capabilities within acceptable risk. If OSD conducted 
a data-driven analysis that linked active personnel levels to strategy, 
it could more effectively demonstrate to Congress a sound basis for the 
active personnel levels it requests. The quadrennial review of the 
defense program planned for 2005 represents an opportunity for a 
systematic reevaluation of personnel levels to ensure that they are 
consistent with the defense strategy. 

Although OSD has identified some near- and long-term initiatives for 
assigning a greater proportion of active personnel to warfighting 
positions, it has not developed a comprehensive plan to implement them 
that assigns responsibility for implementation, identifies resources, 
and provides for evaluation of progress toward objectives. OSD 
officials told us a key reason why OSD does not have a plan to oversee 
its initiatives is that they have had to respond to other higher 
priorities. Sustained leadership and a plan for implementing 
initiatives and measuring progress can help decision makers determine 
if initiatives are achieving their desired results. Without such a 
plan, OSD cannot be sure that initiatives are being implemented in a 
timely manner and having the intended results. For example, the 
initiative to convert military positions to civilian or contractor 
performance is behind schedule. Specifically, OSD’s goal was to convert 
10,000 positions by the end of fiscal year 2004; however, the services 
estimate that they had converted only about 34 percent of these 
positions. By establishing performance metrics and collecting data to 
evaluate the results of its initiatives, OSD could better determine its 
progress in providing more active personnel for warfighting duties and 
inform Congress of its results.

What GAO Recommends:

To facilitate decision making on active military personnel levels and 
achieve greater efficiency, GAO recommends that the Secretary of 
Defense (1) establish, as part of the next quadrennial review, an OSD-
led, systematic approach to assess active personnel levels needed to 
execute the defense strategy and report its analysis and conclusions to 
Congress and (2) develop a plan to manage and evaluate DOD’s 
initiatives designed to assign a greater portion of active personnel to 
warfighting positions. DOD agreed with the recommendations.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-200.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Janet St. Laurent at 
(202) 512-4402 or stlaurentj@gao.gov.

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter:

Results in Brief:

Background:

OSD Has Not Conducted A Comprehensive, Data-Driven Analysis to Assess 
Active Personnel Requirements to Implement the Defense Strategy:

OSD Does Not Have Comprehensive Plans to Manage Near-and Long-Term 
Initiatives to Increase the Proportion of Active Personnel in 
Warfighting Positions:

Military-to-Civilian Position Conversion and Active and Reserve 
Component Rebalancing Initiatives Are Not Meeting Expected Goals or 
Time Frames:

Conclusions:

Recommendations for Executive Action:

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:

Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

Tables:

Table 1: Congressionally Authorized Active Duty End Strength Levels 
Compared to Actual End Strength Levels for Fiscal Years 2000 through 
2005:

Table 2: Long-Term Initiatives for Achieving Greater Efficiencies in 
the Active Duty Force:

Figures:

Figure 1: Comparison of OSD's and the Services' Plans for Military-to-
Civilian Conversions for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 and the Number of 
Conversions Completed in Fiscal Year 2004:

Figure 2: Comparison of OSD's and the Services' Plans to Reassign 
Active Military Positions to High-Demand Skills and the Number of 
Positions Reassigned in Fiscal Year 2004:

Abbreviations:

DOD: Department of Defense:

OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense:

United States Government Accountability Office:

Washington, DC 20548:

February 1, 2005:

Congressional Committees:

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, changed the security 
environment of the United States. The Department of Defense 
(DOD)[Footnote 1] now faces multiple complex threats both overseas and 
at home. U.S. forces, particularly Army and Marine Corps ground forces, 
have experienced a high pace of operations in support of missions in 
Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations. This pace has led to questions 
about whether the U.S. armed forces have enough active military 
personnel to carry out and sustain a wide range of ongoing and 
potential future military operations. In the context of the high pace 
of operations, the Secretary of Defense permitted a temporary increase 
of 30,000 Army active duty military personnel in January 2004 to enable 
the Army to convert its combat forces into more agile and deployable 
units while continuing to support ongoing operations. Subsequently, in 
October 2004, Congress authorized increases in personnel for the Army 
and the Marine Corps. However, the services' active personnel needs are 
likely to be the subject of continuing debate because increases in 
active personnel entail significant near-and long-term costs that 
compete with other priorities. For example, the Army estimates that 
adding 30,000 active duty soldiers to its ranks will cost about $3.6 
billion annually. Senior DOD officials thus want to ensure that the 
department uses active personnel as efficiently as possible before 
personnel levels are permanently increased.

We prepared this report under the Comptroller General's statutory 
authority and are sending it to you because it contains information 
that will be useful for your oversight and authorization 
responsibilities for active military personnel. We reviewed how the 
Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) determines active military 
personnel requirements and manages initiatives to assign active 
personnel from infrastructure or support positions to warfighting 
positions. Our objectives for this work were to assess the extent to 
which (1) OSD has conducted a data-based analysis of active military 
personnel needed to implement the national defense strategy and (2) OSD 
has a plan for making more efficient use of active military personnel 
and evaluating the plan's results. We did not examine reserve component 
requirements.

To assess OSD's oversight of active military personnel requirements, we 
examined OSD's involvement in determining personnel requirements, 
including policy and budget guidance. We also assessed the extent to 
which OSD reviews service processes for determining military personnel 
requirements and allocating personnel to authorized positions. Also, 
relying on our prior work on best practices in human capital 
management, we examined assessments that OSD and the services use to 
determine requirements and inform decision making. To assess OSD's and 
the services' management and implementation of initiatives to use 
military personnel more efficiently, we collected and analyzed 
information on key initiatives and examined the planning, 
implementation, and oversight issues that will likely affect their 
success. We conducted our review from August 2003 through January 2005 
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We 
determined that the data used were sufficiently reliable for our 
objectives and in the context in which the data are presented. Further 
information on our scope and methodology and data reliability 
assessment appears in appendix I.

Results in Brief:

Our prior work has shown that valid and reliable data about the number 
of employees required to meet an agency's needs are critical because 
human capital shortfalls can threaten the agency's ability to perform 
its missions efficiently and effectively, especially when the 
environment has changed significantly.[Footnote 2] OSD provides policy 
and budget guidance to the services as to the numbers of active 
personnel they will be authorized and performs some assessments, such 
as monitoring actual personnel levels, but it has not conducted a 
comprehensive, data-driven analysis to identify the total numbers of 
active military personnel that are needed to execute the national 
defense strategy. A key reason why OSD has not conducted a 
comprehensive analysis of active personnel needs is that, in balancing 
competing priorities within its budgets, it has sought to limit active 
personnel levels in order to devote funds to other priorities, such as 
transformation. OSD has encouraged the services to rebalance skills in 
the active and reserve components to ensure that forces are quickly 
available and have required skills. The services have various processes 
for determining the numbers and types of positions needed to perform 
their priority missions within acceptable levels of risk, although 
several key assessments that could impact their long-term personnel 
needs are ongoing. However, OSD does not review the services' 
requirements processes and their results on a systematic basis to 
ensure that decisions about the levels of active personnel are driven 
by data that establish clear links between personnel levels and 
capabilities needed to achieve the goals of the defense strategy. 
Conducting a data-driven analysis that links active personnel levels to 
the defense strategy could enable OSD to more effectively demonstrate 
to Congress a sound basis for the level of active military personnel it 
requests. The 2005 quadrennial review of the defense program[Footnote 
3] represents an opportunity to conduct such an analysis.

OSD hopes to avert the need to increase active personnel levels by 
making more efficient use of active duty personnel within each service, 
although it does not have a comprehensive plan to manage several 
initiatives it has identified and DOD's progress in implementing some 
of its initiatives is lagging behind its stated goals. Specifically, 
OSD has not developed a comprehensive plan that assigns clear 
responsibility for managing the initiatives, including identifying 
resources needed to implement them, establishing performance metrics, 
and measuring progress. OSD has not developed such a plan because the 
officials given this responsibility have had competing demands on their 
time and other issues have taken priority. Sustained leadership and a 
plan for implementing initiatives and measuring progress can help 
decision makers determine if DOD's initiatives are achieving their 
desired results. The services are already falling behind the 
quantitative goals and time frames for the initiatives OSD initially 
approved to convert military positions to civilian or contractor 
performance and transfer personnel from low-demand specialties to 
specialties in higher demand. For example, the services may have 
difficulty in meetings its goals to reassign servicemembers to 
different high-demand skills because training facilities may not be 
available immediately to accommodate them. Also, senior DOD officials 
have recently stated that about 300,000 military personnel are in 
positions that could be performed by civilians or contractors. However, 
this number is based on a 1997 DOD study, and more recent data compiled 
by OSD indicate that only about 44,000 military personnel are in 
positions that could potentially be converted to civilians or 
contractors over the long-term. In December 2003, OSD set a near-term 
goal for the services to convert about 20,070 military positions to 
civilian or private-sector contractor positions in fiscal years 2004 
and 2005. However, the services did not meet their 2004 goals and will 
face obstacles in achieving the 2005 goals because of the time it takes 
to hire and train replacement personnel, among other reasons. Without a 
comprehensive plan to manage implementation of its initiatives and 
assess results, OSD will not be able to determine whether the 
initiatives are having the desired effect of providing more active 
military personnel for warfighting duties, develop mitigation plans 
where needed, and keep Congress informed of the results.

To facilitate decision making on active military personnel levels and 
achieve greater efficiency, we are making recommendations to the 
Secretary of Defense to (1) establish an OSD-led, systematic approach 
to assess the levels of active military personnel needed to execute the 
defense strategy as part of the next quadrennial review and report its 
analysis and conclusions to Congress and (2) develop a plan to manage 
and evaluate DOD's initiatives to assign a greater portion of active 
military personnel to warfighting duties. The department agreed with 
our recommendations and cited actions it is taking in its 2005 
quadrennial review of defense programs to assess the levels of active 
and reserve personnel and to improve its oversight and evaluation of 
initiatives to reduce the stress on the force.

Background:

For the past several years, DOD has planned and budgeted for about 1.4 
million active military personnel active duty forces: about 482,400 in 
the Army; 359,300 in the Air Force; 373,800 in the Navy; and 175,000 in 
the Marine Corps. These active duty personnel levels have been 
generally stable since the mid-1990s, when forces were reduced from 
their Cold War levels of almost 2 million active military personnel. 
Active duty personnel are considered to be on duty all the time.

Congress authorizes annually the number of personnel that each service 
may have at the end of a given fiscal year. This number is known as 
authorized end strength. Certain events, such as changes between 
planned and actual retention rates, may cause differences between the 
congressionally authorized levels and the actual numbers of people on 
board at the end of a fiscal year. Table 1 shows the congressionally 
authorized levels for fiscal years 2000 through 2005 as compared with 
the services' military personnel actually on board at the end of fiscal 
years 2000 through 2004.

Table 1: Congressionally Authorized Active Duty End Strength Levels 
Compared to Actual End Strength Levels for Fiscal Years 2000 through 
2005:

Army authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 480,000; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 480,000; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 480,000; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 480,000; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 482,400; 
Fiscal year: 2005: 502,400.

Actual end strength; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 482,170; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 480,801; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 486,542; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 499,301; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 499,543; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Percentage difference between actual end strength and authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 0.45%; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 0.17%; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 1.36%; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 4.02%; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 3.55%; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Air Force authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 360,877; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 357,000; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 358,800; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 359,000; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 359,300; 
Fiscal year: 2005: 359,700.

Actual end strength; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 355,654; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 353,571; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 368,251; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 375,062; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 376,616; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Percentage difference between actual end strength and authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: -1.45%; 
Fiscal year: 2001: -0.96%; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 2.63%; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 4.47%; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 4.81%; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Navy authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 372,037; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 372,642; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 376,000; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 375,700; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 373,800; 
Fiscal year: 2005: 365,900.

Actual end strength; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 373,193; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 377,810; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 385,051; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 382,235; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 373,197; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Percentage difference between actual end strength and authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 0.31%; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 1.39%; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 2.41%; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 1.74%; 
Fiscal year: 2004: -0.16%; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Marine Corps authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 172,518; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 172,600; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 172,600; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 175,000; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 175,000; 
Fiscal year: 2005: 178,000.

Actual end strength; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 173,321; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 172,934; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 173,733; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 177,779; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 177,480; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA.

Percentage difference between actual end strength and authorization; 
Fiscal year: 2000: 0.47%; 
Fiscal year: 2001: 0.19%; 
Fiscal year: 2002: 0.66%; 
Fiscal year: 2003: 1.59%; 
Fiscal year: 2004: 1.41%; 
Fiscal year: 2005: NA. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD data.

[End of table]

As table 1 shows, the Army and the Air Force exceeded their authorized 
end strengths by more than 3 percent in fiscal years 2003 and 2004.

The Secretary of Defense has statutory authority to increase the 
services' end strengths by up to 3 percent above authorized levels for 
a given fiscal year if such action is deemed to serve the national 
interest.[Footnote 4] In addition, if at the end of any fiscal year 
there is in effect a war or national emergency, the President may waive 
end strength authorization levels for that fiscal year.[Footnote 5] On 
September 14, 2001, the President declared a state of national 
emergency and delegated end strength waiver authority to the Secretary 
of Defense.[Footnote 6] Since then, the President has annually renewed 
the national state of emergency as well as end strength waiver 
authorities specified in Executive Order 13223. In January 2004, the 
Secretary of Defense exercised the President's authority and increased 
temporarily the Army's end strength by 30,000 for fiscal years 2004 
through 2009 to facilitate the Army's reorganization while continuing 
ongoing operations.

While the Secretary of Defense's goal is ultimately to have the Army 
return to an active military personnel level of 482,400 by 2009, in 
October 2004, Congress increased the fiscal year 2005 end strength of 
the Army by 20,000 personnel, the Marine Corps by 3,000, and the Air 
Force by 400.[Footnote 7] Congress also authorized additional authority 
for increases of 10,000 active Army personnel and 6,000 Marines through 
fiscal year 2009. In contrast, Congress reduced authorized end strength 
for the Navy by 7,900 personnel from the fiscal year 2004 level. 
Moreover, Congress directed that for fiscal year 2005, the Army will 
fund active military personnel increases in excess of 482,400 and the 
Marine Corps will fund active military personnel increases in excess of 
175,000 through either a contingent emergency reserve fund or an 
emergency supplemental appropriation.

OSD Has Not Conducted A Comprehensive, Data-Driven Analysis to Assess 
Active Personnel Requirements to Implement the Defense Strategy:

Our prior work has shown that valid and reliable data about the number 
of employees an agency requires are critical in preventing shortfalls 
that threaten its ability to economically, efficiently, and effectively 
perform its missions.[Footnote 8] Although OSD has processes through 
which it issues policy and budget guidance that set the overall 
priorities for defense activities, including personnel levels, it does 
not have a process for comprehensively analyzing the active personnel 
levels needed to execute the defense strategy within acceptable levels 
of risk. OSD has not placed an emphasis on reviewing active military 
personnel requirements, focusing instead on limiting personnel costs in 
order to fund competing priorities such as transformation. The services 
have processes to establish their active duty requirements; however, 
service processes vary in their methodologies, and several major 
reviews are still ongoing and have not fully identified long-term 
personnel needs. Although OSD has performed some reviews related to 
active duty levels, it does not review the services' results in a 
systematic way to ensure that decisions on the numbers of active 
military personnel are driven by data that make clear the links between 
personnel levels and strategic goals, such as the defense strategy. 
Conducting such a review could enable OSD to more effectively 
demonstrate how the services' requirements for active military 
personnel provide the capabilities to execute the defense strategy 
within an acceptable level of risk. Further, OSD could provide more 
complete information to Congress about how active military personnel 
requirements for each service are changing and about the implications 
of changes for future funding and budget priorities. The quadrennial 
review of the defense program planned for 2005 represents an 
opportunity for a systematic analysis and reevaluation of personnel 
levels to ensure that they are consistent with the defense strategy.

Human Capital Best Practices Rely on Data-Driven Analyses to Guide 
Decision Making:

Our prior work has shown that valid and reliable data about the number 
of employees an agency requires are critical if the agency is to 
spotlight areas for attention before crises develop, such as human 
capital shortfalls that threaten an agency's ability to economically, 
efficiently, and effectively perform its missions. We have designated 
human capital management as a governmentwide high-risk area in which 
acquiring and developing a staff whose size, skills, and deployment 
meet agency needs is a particular challenge. To meet this challenge, 
federal managers need to direct considerable time, energy, and targeted 
investments toward managing human capital strategically, focusing on 
developing long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, and 
retaining a workforce that is clearly linked to achieving the agency's 
mission and goals.

The processes that an agency uses to manage its workforce can vary, but 
our prior work has shown that data-driven decision making is one of the 
critical factors in successful strategic workforce management. High-
performing organizations routinely use current, valid, and reliable 
data to inform decisions about current and future workforce needs, 
including data on the appropriate number of employees, key 
competencies, and skills mix needed for mission accomplishment, and 
appropriate deployment of staff across the organizations. In addition, 
high-performing organizations also stay alert to emerging mission 
demands and remain open to reevaluating their human capital practices. 
Changes in the security environment and defense strategy represent 
junctures at which DOD could systematically reevaluate service 
personnel levels to determine whether they are consistent with 
strategic objectives.

In 1999, Congress created a permanent requirement for DOD to conduct a 
review of the defense program every 4 years and to report on its 
findings.[Footnote 9] During these reviews, DOD is required, among 
other things, to define sufficient force structure[Footnote 10] and 
"other elements" of the defense program that would be required to 
execute successfully the full range of missions called for in the 
national defense strategy and to identify a budget plan that would be 
required to provide sufficient resources to execute successfully these 
missions at a low-to-moderate level of risk. The quadrennial review of 
the defense program thus represents an opportunity for DOD to review 
elements related to force structure, such as the total numbers of 
military personnel, both active duty and reserve, that are needed to 
execute the defense strategy most efficiently and effectively. Based on 
the legislative requirements, DOD plans to conduct a quadrennial review 
in 2005 and publish its next report in 2006.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 changed the nation's security 
environment. Shortly thereafter, DOD issued a new national defense 
strategy in its 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report.[Footnote 11] 
The 2001 report outlined a new risk management framework consisting of 
four dimensions of risk--force management, operational, future 
challenges, and institutional--to inform the consideration of trade-off 
decisions among key performance objectives within resource constraints. 
According to DOD's Fiscal Year 2003 Performance and Accountability 
Report,[Footnote 12] these risk areas are to form the basis for DOD's 
annual performance goals. In November 2004, DOD reported its 
performance results for fiscal year 2004, noting that it met some of 
its performance goals associated with these risk management areas.

Our prior work suggests that agency leaders can use valid and reliable 
data to manage risk by highlighting areas for attention before crises 
develop and to identify opportunities for improving agency results. As 
agency officials seek to ensure that risk remains balanced across their 
agencies' activities and investments, they can adjust existing 
performance goals. Likewise, they can create new performance goals to 
gather data about critical activities.

OSD Provides Policy and Budget Guidance to the Services but Does Not 
Conduct or Review Analyses of Active Personnel Requirements:

OSD has recognized that the active and reserve forces have been 
challenged to provide ready forces for current operations, including 
high demand for some support skills, such as civil affairs and military 
police, and is taking steps to achieve a number of objectives, such as 
improving the responsiveness of the force and helping ease stress on 
units and individuals with skills in high demand. For example, the 
Secretary of Defense, in a July 9, 2003, memorandum, directed the 
services to examine how to rebalance the capabilities in the active and 
reserve forces. The services had already undertaken a number of steps 
to address requirements for high-demand skills sets as a part of their 
ongoing manpower management analyses. For example, in 2002 the Army 
began planning for fiscal years 2004 through 2009 to address high-
demand areas, such as military police. However, the Secretary's 
memorandum accelerated the services' rebalancing efforts, which are 
critical to establishing requirements for active personnel.

OSD provides policy and budget guidance to the services on balancing 
the costs of active personnel with other funding priorities, such as 
transformation. Its approach to active personnel levels has been to 
limit growth and initiate efforts to use current military personnel 
levels more efficiently. OSD also conducts a number of ongoing and 
periodic reviews and assessments related to active military personnel 
levels, although these do not represent a systematic analysis of 
requirements for active military personnel needed to perform missions 
in the nation's defense strategy. For example:

* The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report identified the defense 
strategy that guided DOD's analysis of the force structure. Under the 
new strategy, DOD reported it needed sufficient forces to defend the 
homeland, provide forward deterrence, execute warfighting missions, and 
conduct smaller-scale contingency operations. Thus, DOD shifted its 
force planning approach from optimizing the force for conflicts in two 
particular regions to providing a range of capabilities for a variety 
of operations, wherever they may occur. The report concluded that the 
department's existing force structure was sufficient to execute the 
redesigned defense strategy at moderate risk, but it did not refer to a 
specific OSD-led analysis to reassess the impact of the new 
capabilities-based planning on the numbers of military personnel 
needed. DOD officials said that the 2005 review may include a top-down 
review of end strength but did not provide further details about the 
specific guidance to implement such a review.

* To ensure that the services comply with congressionally authorized 
active personnel levels on duty at the end of a fiscal year, OSD 
monitors service reports for personnel on board. According to some 
service officials, managing personnel levels is challenging for the 
services because they cannot always control personnel management 
factors, such as retention and retirement rates, which are affected by 
servicemembers' personal decisions. Compliance with authorized 
personnel levels is one of the performance metrics that DOD presents in 
its Performance and Accountability Report. According to the 
department's fiscal year 2003 report,[Footnote 13] for fiscal years 
1999 through 2002, DOD met its goal of not exceeding authorized levels 
by more than 2 percent. However, in fiscal year 2003, the Army and the 
Air Force did not meet this goal, having exceeded authorized limits by 
4 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, in order to maintain 
sufficient troops to fight a global war on terrorism. Air Force 
officials told us that better than expected recruitment and retention 
of personnel also caused the Air Force to exceed the authorized limit. 
Also, the Army's exercise of stop loss authority,[Footnote 14] which 
prevents servicemembers from leaving the service even if they are 
eligible to retire or their service contracts expire, may have 
contributed to its overages in fiscal year 2003. DOD's fiscal year 2004 
Performance and Accountability Report shows that the Army and the Air 
Force again did not meet the performance goal, exceeding authorized 
levels, by 3.7 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively; the Navy and the 
Marine Corps did meet the goal.[Footnote 15] While this measure is 
important for compliance with congressional direction, it cannot be 
used to determine whether the active force has enough personnel to 
accomplish its missions successfully because it does not assess the 
extent to which end strength levels meet the nation's defense strategy 
at an acceptable level of risk.

* DOD's annual report to Congress on manpower requirements for fiscal 
year 2005[Footnote 16] broadly states a justification for DOD's 
requested active military personnel, but it does not provide specific 
analyses to support the justification. Instead, the report provides 
summaries on personnel, such as the allocation of active military 
personnel between operating forces and infrastructure. Although the 
types of operating forces are specified, for example, "expeditionary 
forces," the specific capabilities associated with such forces are not 
identified. The report also provides the active military personnel data 
for the near term--fiscal years 2003 through 2005; it does not, 
however, contain data for the department's long-term planned 
allocations. Although the report stated that DOD will continue to 
review the adequacy of military capabilities and associated end 
strength requirements, the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
(including the Offices of Policy; Personnel and Readiness; Comptroller; 
and Program Analysis and Evaluation), Joint Staff, and some service 
officials we interviewed could not identify a specific process or an 
OSD-led analysis in which the department reexamines the basis for 
active military personnel levels.

OSD coordinates with the services on active personnel levels throughout 
the department's planning and budgeting cycle, but it has not 
established a process that would enable it to periodically examine the 
requirements for the active military personnel and ensure that 
decisions are driven by data that establish links between active 
military personnel levels and key missions required by the national 
defense strategy. For example, OSD does not systematically examine or 
validate the services' methodologies or results to assess personnel 
levels across the active force. Further, OSD does not systematically 
collect data that would enable it to monitor how the services are 
allocating personnel to key warfighting and support functions.

The Services Use Varied Processes to Assess Changing Needs for Active 
Personnel, but OSD Has Not Conducted Systematic Analyses across the 
Services:

Although each of the services has processes for assessing military 
personnel requirements, the extent to which OSD has analyzed the 
results of these processes is not clear. The services use different 
methodologies for assessing their active personnel requirements, and 
their processes and initiatives have different time frames. In 
addition, several key efforts to assess requirements are still ongoing 
and have not yet identified long-term requirements. These processes are 
described below.

* The Army generates personnel requirements through a biennial process 
known as Total Army Analysis. During the initial stages of this 
process, Army force planners assess the numbers and types of units 
needed to carry out missions specified in DOD and Army guidance. The 
most recent Total Army Analysis--called Total Army Analysis 2011 
because it provides the force structure foundation for the Army's 
fiscal year 2006 through 2011 planning cycle--included analyses of 
operating force requirements for homeland defense, major combat 
operations, forward deterrence, and ongoing military operations, among 
others, as well as for personnel who operate installations and provide 
support services. During the subsequent resourcing phase of the 
process, Army officials determine how best to allocate the limited 
number of positions authorized by OSD among active and reserve 
component units across the Army's force structure to minimize risk to 
priority missions.

The Army completed an initial version of Total Army Analysis 2011 in 
spring 2004, but the Army continues to assess requirements as it 
carries out changes to its basic force structure. These changes, 
discussed in the Army Campaign Plan, alter the way in which the service 
organizes and staffs its combat forces, and therefore will have 
significant impacts on the numbers of active personnel the Army will 
need. In place of the existing 10 active divisions, each comprising 
about 3 combat brigades and associated support units, the Army's new 
force structure will be based on modular combat brigades, each with its 
own support units. Under current plans, when the new structure is fully 
implemented in 2006, the Army will have 43 combat brigades, an increase 
of 10 brigades from the 33 it had under the traditional divisional 
structure. Although the Army has begun implementing plans to create a 
modular force structure, several aspects of these plans are uncertain 
or have yet to be determined. For example, the Army is considering 
increasing the number of brigades it will have from 43 to 48. This 
increase could require approximately 17,000 to 18,000 more personnel 
depending on the types of brigades established. The Army plans to make 
the decision by fiscal year 2006 based on resource considerations as 
well as the status of ongoing military operations. Further, while the 
Army has developed personnel requirements for its planned modular 
combat brigades, it has not yet determined the overall number or 
composition of all the support units, such as reconnaissance, which it 
will need to support those brigades.

* The Navy uses two separate processes to assess and validate 
requirements for its operating forces and its infrastructure forces. 
While the processes vary in scope and methodology, both are based on 
activities' workloads. For operating forces, such as ships and aviation 
squadrons, workloads are based on each ship's or squadron's mission, 
the capabilities needed to execute the mission, and the conditions 
under which the mission is to be carried out. For shore-based 
infrastructure forces, personnel requirements are based on the numbers 
and types of personnel required to accomplish each activity's workload. 
As we have reported, the Navy has had difficulty in past years 
justifying its shore requirements because it has not evaluated 
alternative combinations of people, materiel, facilities, and 
organizational structures to ensure that the most cost-effective 
combination of resources is used.[Footnote 17] The Navy is also 
conducting discrete analyses to identify opportunities to reduce 
military personnel requirements in support of projected end strength 
reductions. By reducing end strength, the Navy aims to free up funds 
for fleet modernization. For example, it initiated studies on providing 
services, such as meteorological support, financial management, 
religious ministries, and recruiting. To achieve the lower cost, the 
Navy is examining alternatives to military manpower--for example, using 
technology or hiring private-sector contractors instead of using 
military personnel. Furthermore, these studies aim to identify ways to 
eliminate redundant activities by consolidating activities that provide 
similar services. Under a separate set of reviews, the Navy is 
scrutinizing positions in selected career fields such as supply support 
to determine whether these positions are military essential or, rather, 
could be staffed with civilian employees.

* The Air Force's current process for determining the manpower it needs 
is focused on the requirements for training objectives and for 
operating and maintaining bases and weapons systems in peacetime. 
However, the Air Force is in the process of overhauling its manpower 
requirements process to determine the capabilities it needs for its 
role as an expeditionary force able to respond rapidly to worldwide 
contingencies. The Air Force plans to continue using the same 
methodological techniques (e.g., time studies, work sampling, computer 
simulation, and aircrew ratios) to quantify its personnel requirements, 
but the new process will include both the infrastructure personnel and 
the warfighting force needed to support expeditionary missions. The Air 
Force expects to implement its new capabilities-based approach by 
fiscal year 2008.

* The Marine Corps uses modeling, simulations, spreadsheet analysis, 
and other analytic tools to identify gaps in its capabilities to 
perform its missions, and then identifies the personnel and skills 
needed to provide the capabilities based largely on the professional 
judgment of manpower experts and subject matter experts. The results 
are summarized in a manpower document, updated as needed, which is used 
to allocate positions and personnel to meet mission priorities. The 
Marine Corps' analyses for fiscal year 2004 indicated that to execute 
its assigned missions the Corps needs about 9,600 more personnel than 
it has on hand. The 2005 National Defense Authorization Act authorized 
the Marine Corps to increase its end strength by 3,000 personnel to 
178,000 in 2005 and to increase by an additional 6,000 personnel 
between fiscal year 2005 and 2009.

Although the security environment has changed since 2001, OSD has not 
conducted a systematic review of the services' analyses and allocation 
of personnel. Consequently, OSD cannot ensure that the end strength 
levels established in its strategic and fiscal guidance reflect the 
numbers of personnel needed to execute the defense strategy. Further, 
it cannot ensure that it has a sufficient basis for understanding the 
risks associated with different levels of active military personnel. 
While too many active personnel could be inefficient and costly, having 
too few could result in other negative consequences, such as inability 
to provide the capabilities that the military forces need to deter and 
defeat adversaries. If OSD had a data-driven rationale to support its 
funding requests for specific end strength levels, it could provide 
congressional decision makers more complete information on how active 
duty personnel requirements are linked to the budget, the force 
structure, and the defense strategy.

OSD Does Not Have Comprehensive Plans to Manage Near-and Long-Term 
Initiatives to Increase the Proportion of Active Personnel in 
Warfighting Positions:

OSD hopes to avert the need to increase active personnel levels by 
making more efficient use of the current active military personnel 
within each service, although it does not have a comprehensive plan for 
how it will accomplish this and progress in implementing initiatives 
designed to make more efficient use of active military is lagging 
behind goals. Specifically, OSD has not developed a comprehensive plan 
for managing the initiatives because the officials assigned this 
responsibility have competing demands on their time and resources and 
have not made this a priority. Sustained leadership and a plan for 
implementing initiatives and measuring progress can help decision 
makers determine if initiatives are achieving their desired results. In 
addition, although OSD has identified two near-term initiatives--
military-to-civilian conversion and retraining for high-demand skills-
-current data indicate that the initiatives are not meeting their 
quantitative goals or prescribed time frames because funding has not 
been identified and time frames have not taken into account hiring and 
training factors. OSD has approved quantitative goals and time frames 
for the near-term initiatives, and the services are taking steps to 
implement them, but OSD does not have an implementation plan that 
assigns responsibility for ensuring that the initiatives are 
implemented, identifies resources needed, monitors progress, and 
evaluates their results. In addition to the near-term goals, OSD has 
identified some long-term initiatives to reduce the need for active 
personnel, such as using technology more extensively, although these 
initiatives are not fully developed, and it hopes to identify 
additional ways to use active personnel more efficiently. However, 
without a comprehensive plan to manage implementation of its 
initiatives and assess their results, OSD may be unable to determine 
whether the initiatives have the desired effect of providing more 
military personnel for warfighting duties, thus averting the need for 
more active personnel. Consequently, OSD may not be able to track the 
progress of these initiatives and keep Congress informed on the results 
of its initiatives to use active military personnel more efficiently.

Responsibilities for Managing and Overseeing Initiatives Have Not Been 
Clearly Defined:

According to officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's 
Under Secretaries for Policy and for Personnel and Readiness, in summer 
2003, the Secretary of Defense directed the Deputy Under Secretary of 
Defense for Policy to develop a plan for managing initiatives that 
might either directly or indirectly use the active force more 
efficiently. However, no personnel were assigned responsibility for 
carrying out the Secretary's tasking, in part because of competing 
demands on staff time, such as developing DOD's Strategic Planning 
Guidance. According to a senior official in the Policy office, OSD and 
service officials met soon after the Secretary directed more efficient 
use of the force to discuss how to provide oversight of the 
initiatives. However, other work demands took priority, and they did 
not continue the meetings. In spring 2004, oversight responsibilities 
for the initiatives were transferred to the Office of the Under 
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, according to an 
official in the Office of Policy. Even after the transfer, OSD 
officials could not identify an individual with responsibility for 
creating and implementing a plan to organize, monitor, and evaluate the 
initiatives. In response to an inquiry by the Secretary of Defense, in 
fall 2004 an official in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 
for Personnel and Readiness told us that he had begun developing ways 
to determine the results of the services' efforts to achieve workforce 
efficiencies. However, at the time of our review, the methodology for 
the analysis was still being developed.

Management principles embraced in the Government Performance and 
Results Act of 1993[Footnote 18] provide agencies a framework for 
implementing and managing programs. One principle is the need to 
describe detailed implementation actions as well as measurements and 
indicators of performance (i.e., a performance plan). Critical elements 
of such a plan include identifying resources and developing mechanisms 
to measure outcomes and means to compare program results to performance 
goals. In addition, sustained leadership in managing this plan is 
needed to ensure that program objectives are implemented in accordance 
with the plan, compare program results to performance goals, and take 
corrective actions as needed.

Without oversight of the services' implementation of initiatives to 
make more efficient use of military personnel, DOD cannot be sure that 
changes are having the desired effect. For example, the department 
recently reported that it had completed its initiative to reduce and 
maintain the numbers of active personnel assigned to headquarters units 
by 15 percent from their 1999 levels. Although the objective of the 
initiative was to increase the numbers of military personnel assigned 
to warfighting duties, DOD did not collect data on how the military 
positions that had been assigned to headquarters units were assigned 
after the reductions. Therefore, DOD could not demonstrate whether 
headquarters staff reductions directly resulted in more active military 
personnel being available for the services' warfighting duties and 
could not assess the magnitude of any changes.

Military-to-Civilian Position Conversion and Active and Reserve 
Component Rebalancing Initiatives Are Not Meeting Expected Goals or 
Time Frames:

While the services are in the process of implementing OSD's initiatives 
to use active personnel more efficiently in the near term, such as 
converting military positions to civilian or contractor performance and 
rebalancing the active and reserve component skills, the initiatives 
are not meeting planned goals and time frames and are not having the 
desired results. The services have made some progress in converting 
positions to civilians or contractors and reassigning positions to 
high-demand skills, but most of the services did not meet their 
quantitative goals or time frames for 2004[Footnote 19] because of 
funding issues and delays in recruiting, hiring, contracting, and 
training personnel. Without a plan for overseeing the services' 
implementation of the initiatives, including assigning responsibility 
and collecting data, OSD cannot assess progress toward meeting the 
goals of moving military positions to the operating forces and take 
corrective action, if needed.

Converting Military Positions to Civilian or Contractor Performance Is 
Not Meeting Quantitative Goals within Planned Time Frames:

Some military personnel are assigned to activities that are commercial 
in nature and could, theoretically, be performed by a DOD civilian or 
by a contractor. For example, many activities that DOD organizations 
must accomplish, such as administrative, personnel, and infrastructure 
support, do not require military training. However, estimates of the 
numbers of military personnel occupying such positions who could be 
reassigned to warfighting positions vary widely. For example, senior 
OSD officials recently stated that about 300,000 military personnel are 
performing functions that civilians could perform or that could be 
contracted out to a commercial source. However, OSD and some service 
officials acknowledged this estimate was based on a 1997 study that 
used a methodology, that overstated the actual number of military 
personnel in positions suitable for civilian or contractor performance. 
Since that time, a comprehensive review of commercial-type 
positions[Footnote 20] completed in 2003 identified only about 44,000 
military positions as suitable for conversion to civilian or contractor 
positions.

In December 2003, OSD directed the services to convert about 20,070 
military positions to civilian or private-sector contractor positions 
by the end of fiscal year 2005--10,000 in fiscal year 2004 and 10,070 
in fiscal year 2005. OSD directed the services to fund the conversion 
costs through offsets from other programs, such as base operations 
support. Several service officials told us that OSD did not provide 
them with information on how the conversion goals were developed. They 
also explained that since the fiscal year goals were not realistic, 
given that the fiscal year was already under way, taking planned 
funding from other programs could be disruptive. Moreover, some service 
officials indicated that the amount of time needed to hire civilians or 
award contracts was a further impediment to meeting the OSD goals. 
Therefore, the services developed alternative goals to convert about 
2,900 positions by the end of fiscal year 2004. As figure 1 shows, at 
the end of fiscal year 2004, the service officials told us that they 
had converted about 3,400 positions,[Footnote 21] which was about 34 
percent of OSD's original goal of 10,000 positions. Although the 
services have a goal to convert about 15,900 positions in fiscal year 
2005, several service officials believe that identifying funding and 
the time needed to hire civilians or award contracts may impede their 
ability to fully implement their goals.

Fiscal Year 2004:

Figure 1: Comparison of OSD's and the Services' Plans for Military-to-
Civilian Conversions for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 and the Number of 
Conv:

[See PDF for image]

Note: With the exception of the Navy and the Marine Corps, we were 
unable to determine the reliability of the fiscal year 2004 data for 
the numbers of completed positions related to military-to-civilian 
conversions. Further information on our data reliability assessment 
appears in appendix I.

[A] The Army converted about 35 active military positions in fiscal 
year 2004. This figure does not include changes to the reserve 
components.

[End of figure]

In fiscal year 2004, several of the services had to pay for the 
civilian or contractor replacements for military personnel who will 
continue to serve in different positions through offsets from other 
programs. According to some service officials, lack of additional 
funding limited the number of conversions that could be made in 2004. 
For example, in fiscal year 2004, the Army converted only about 35 
military positions because, according to Army officials, paying for 
more positions would have created problems in other program areas. 
Neither OSD nor the services had fully evaluated the costs of proposed 
military-to-civilian position conversions. OSD plans to provide $416 
million in fiscal year 2005 to fund some conversions, but because the 
services have not identified specific positions to be converted, 
whether this amount will fully fund all the planned conversions is not 
known.

In addition, several service officials expressed concern that hiring 
civilians or contractors with the necessary skills to fill the 
positions vacated by military personnel may exceed planned time frames. 
For example, Navy officials explained that the process of hiring 
civilians who are qualified to replace 1,772 military personnel with 
medical skills could extend beyond the planned date of fiscal year 
2005. To complete these conversions, the Navy will have to compete with 
the job markets in local economies to recruit individuals with the 
appropriate medical specialties in varied geographical areas. In 
addition, it will have to manage the planned rotation dates and service 
obligation commitments of the military servicemembers currently in the 
target positions.

The services plan to use varying processes that could result in the 
conversion of positions currently performed by active military 
personnel. The Air Force and the Marine Corps plan to use the 
competitive sourcing process to determine whether it would be more 
cost-efficient to perform activities within DOD such as aircraft 
maintenance or, alternatively, to contract with the private sector. The 
Army does not plan to use this process to compete active military 
positions for potential private-sector contracts, Army officials told 
us, because the process may take longer than 2 years to 
complete.[Footnote 22] Rather, the Army plans to hire government 
civilians to fill positions vacated by military personnel.

Although OSD does not have a comprehensive plan to implement, monitor, 
and evaluate its efficiency initiatives as a whole, in April 2004, the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness introduced a 
process for managing conversions of military positions to civilian or 
contractor positions. Specifically, this process is designed to (1) 
measure the services' progress in achieving military-to-civilian 
conversion goals, (2) determine which skill sets will receive 
additional military positions subsequent to conversions, and (3) 
identify and track the number of civilian or contractor positions added 
as a result of conversions. According to OSD and some service 
officials, this oversight mechanism will lend greater transparency to 
the services' military-to-civilian conversion efforts and will provide 
the services an incentive to accelerate their own conversion efforts. 
It was too early to evaluate the process' performance because the 
systems that will be used to measure progress or account for 
conversions either were being developed or required modifications to 
capture new data.

Goals for Reassigning Servicemembers to High-Demand Skills May Not Be 
Achievable within Planned Time Frames because of Limited Training 
Availability:

Another near-term initiative to make the best use of active military 
personnel focuses on shifting positions in low-demand skills, such as 
artillery, to high-demand skills, such as military police, both within 
the active and reserve components and between them. That would include 
shifting some functions predominately concentrated in the reserve 
component, such as civil affairs, to the active component. Through this 
initiative, DOD plans to increase the availability of high-demand 
skills overall and to meet short-notice demands. In February 2004, 
service officials reported to OSD that they could reassign about 22,900 
active duty military positions[Footnote 23] to skills in high demand--
about 13,900 positions and 9,000 positions in fiscal years 2004 and 
2005, respectively--and OSD approved the services' estimates. However, 
in planning to implement rebalancing activities, a senior OSD official 
told us service officials determined that the initial estimates would 
be difficult to execute in the near term due in part to the emerging 
operational requirements as a result of the global war on terrorism. 
Therefore, as figure 2 shows, the services' plans for reassigning 
active personnel were lowered. For example, the services planned to 
reassign about 5,900 positions in fiscal year 2004--about 42 percent of 
the 13,900 positions originally estimated. In fiscal year 2005, the 
Army, the Air Force, and the Navy plan to reassign skills for about 
8,940 military positions--about 60 fewer positions than the original 
estimate of about 9,000. In fiscal year 2004, the Marine Corps did not 
plan to change the mix of skills for any active military personnel, and 
it has not yet completed plans for fiscal year 2005 according to a 
Marine Corps official.

Figure 2: Comparison of OSD's and the Services' Plans to Reassign 
Active Military Positions to High-Demand Skills and the Number of 
Positions Reassigned in Fiscal Year 2004:

[See PDF for image]

Note: With the exception of the Navy, we were unable to determine the 
reliability of the fiscal year 2004 data for the numbers of completed 
positions related to rebalancing of the active and reserve components. 
Further information on our data reliability assessment appears in 
appendix I.

[A] In fiscal year 2004, the Marine Corps did not change the mix of 
skills for active military personnel and in fiscal year 2005, the 
Marine Corps has not yet completed its plans.

[End of figure]

Even if the services could identify positions to meet targets for 
rebalancing skills, DOD could still encounter delays in providing 
active personnel with high-demand skills quickly because, according to 
some service officials, training facilities, courses, and instructors 
may limit the numbers of personnel who can be retrained in the short 
term. Further, training servicemembers for some specialized skills 
requires time for them to acquire proficiency. For example, Army and 
Marine Corps officials told us that training military personnel for 
skills such as satellite imagery analysis might take 1 to 2 years.

Long-Term Initiatives Do Not Have Well-Defined Implementation Plans:

Although DOD has begun to implement its two major initiatives, it had 
not developed clear implementation plans for initiatives, which have 
longer-term or less direct effects on active military personnel who may 
be needed for warfighting duties. While some of the long-term 
initiatives focus on specific problems and issues, such as relying more 
on volunteers, others are concepts the department would like to explore 
more fully over time, such as greater use of varied technologies. 
Senior OSD officials acknowledged that these initiatives are not yet 
completely developed and do not yet have detailed implementation plans 
that identify time frames, resources, and measures of success. 
Moreover, some long-term initiatives may take years to implement, 
according to these officials. Consequently, it may take years before 
OSD is in a position to determine whether these long-term initiatives 
will yield the expected increases of active duty military personnel for 
warfighting duties. For example, senior OSD officials identified global 
reachback, other new technologies, and volunteerism as initiatives the 
department is exploring, as described in table 3.

Table 2: Long-Term Initiatives for Achieving Greater Efficiencies in 
the Active Duty Force:

Initiative: Global reach back; 
Description: 
* This initiative would enable servicemembers to provide essential 
support and skills, such as intelligence, by connecting electronically 
to sites in the United States and worldwide locations; 
* This capability could reduce both the number of forces deployed and 
the rotation base needed to maintain the troops deployed in theater; 
* DOD completed a study on reachback best practices in summer 2004.

Initiative: Technology; 
Description: 
* This initiative involves investing in new technologies, such as 
remote sensing devices and unmanned air vehicles, which are intended to 
reduce the required numbers of military personnel; 
* DOD plans to assess new technology on a continuing basis.

Initiative: Volunteerism; 
Description: 
* This initiative involves deploying civilians, private contractors, or 
reserve personnel who have critical skills in high demand, such as 
linguists and engineers, who would volunteer for short periods of time 
and in response to specific emergencies; 
* DOD plans to develop policies and legislative proposals for Congress. 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD data.

[End of table]

The services targeted some technologies that they can use to reduce the 
need for support personnel in the near term, although these may not be 
implemented as planned because technologies are supplied first to 
operational needs. For example, to reduce its reliance on about 3,000 
Army National Guard and Reserve personnel who provide security-related 
functions at Air Force bases, the Air Force planned to use ground 
surveillance radars and thermal imagers to detect intruders and improve 
surveillance in fiscal year 2004. However, the Air Force has not yet 
outfitted its domestic military bases with this equipment because it 
was needed for use on Army bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, 
the Air Force must continue to rely on servicemembers for security 
until at least fiscal year 2006, when it plans to buy additional 
equipment. For the long term, Navy officials anticipate that 
acquisition of new technology related to transformation could reduce 
the manpower it needs. For example, the Navy expects the number of 
military personnel it will need to operate and support its new DD(X) 
destroyer will be smaller than the number needed to operate destroyers 
currently in use.[Footnote 24] However, Navy officials have not yet 
determined the exact crew size for the new destroyers.

Conclusions:

The changing security environment and high pace of operations resulting 
from the global war on terrorism have led to significant debate about 
whether there are a sufficient number of active military servicemembers 
to carry out ongoing and potential future military operations. Although 
DOD defined a new defense strategy that broadens the range of 
capabilities that may be needed at home and around the world, OSD has 
not undertaken a systematic, data-based analysis of how the changed 
strategy is linked to personnel levels, so it cannot demonstrate how 
the current number of active personnel supports the department's 
ability to execute the strategy within acceptable levels of risk. While 
personnel costs compete with costs of other priorities, without data-
driven analyses of the forces--including active and reserve personnel-
-and how they are linked to the strategy, DOD is limited in its ability 
to determine how best to invest its limited resources over the near and 
long term between the competing priorities of personnel costs and other 
needs. The department will also continue to face challenges in 
achieving consensus with Congress on active duty end strength levels, 
in light of the demands imposed by ongoing operations and the 
significant changes in the security environment, until it can better 
demonstrate the basis for its budget requests.

Although DOD has taken several positive steps to achieve its goal of 
using active military personnel more efficiently, its initiatives may 
lose momentum without additional management attention. Further, DOD 
cannot assess whether the initiatives are having the desired effect of 
providing more active personnel to warfighting positions because it has 
not developed an implementation plan to coordinate and oversee the 
initiatives put forward as contributing to more efficient use of active 
forces. Until DOD develops a plan that assigns responsibilities, 
clarifies time frames, identifies resources, and sets out performance 
metrics, DOD will not be able to assess the progress of the initiatives 
and take corrective action, if necessary. Moreover, in the absence of 
specific monitoring and reporting, DOD will not be able to inform 
Congress on the extent to which its efficiency initiatives are enabling 
it to meet emerging needs and better manage the high pace of operations 
that U.S. active forces are currently experiencing.

Recommendations for Executive Action:

To facilitate DOD's and congressional decision making on active 
military personnel levels and to help DOD achieve its goals for 
assigning a greater proportion of active military personnel to 
positions in the operating force, we recommend that the Secretary of 
Defense take the following two actions:

* Conduct a review of active military personnel requirements as part of 
the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. This review should include a 
detailed analysis of how the services currently allocate active 
military forces to key missions required by the defense strategy and 
should examine the need for changes in overall personnel levels and in 
the allocation of personnel in response to new missions and changes in 
the defense strategy. The Secretary of Defense should summarize and 
include in its Quadrennial Defense Review report to Congress DOD's 
conclusions about appropriate personnel levels for each of the services 
and describe the key assumptions guiding DOD's analysis, the 
methodology used to evaluate requirements, and how the risks associated 
with various alternative personnel force levels were evaluated.

* Develop a detailed plan to manage implementation of DOD's initiatives 
to use the force more efficiently. Such a plan should establish 
implementation objectives and time frames, assign responsibility, 
identify resources, and develop performance measures to enable DOD to 
evaluate the results of the initiatives in allocating a greater 
proportion of the active force to warfighting positions.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Program Integration) provided 
written comments on a draft of this report. The department generally 
agreed with our recommendations and cited actions it is taking to 
implement them. The department's comments are reprinted in their 
entirety in appendix II. In addition, the department provided technical 
comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

The department agreed with our recommendation that the Secretary of 
Defense conduct an OSD-led, comprehensive assessment of the manning and 
balancing the force needed to execute the defense strategy as part of 
the next quadrennial review. In its comments, the department said that 
it intends to meet the requirements that Congress set forth in 
mandating the quadrennial review, including assessing the total force 
structure needed to implement the defense strategy. Further, the 
department agreed with our recommendation to report to Congress its 
conclusions about appropriate personnel levels for each of the services 
and describe the key assumptions guiding its analysis, the methodology 
used to evaluate the requirements, and how the risks associated with 
various alternative personnel force levels were evaluated. We believe 
that the department's approach will satisfy the intent of our 
recommendation if, in the course of the quadrennial review, the manning 
and balancing of active and reserve forces are specifically analyzed 
using appropriate methodologies, assumptions, and evaluative 
techniques. Providing this information to Congress will assist in its 
oversight of defense programs by providing a sound basis for decision 
making on the size of the active and reserve forces and the costs and 
risks associated with various alternatives.

The department also agreed with our recommendation to develop a 
detailed plan to manage implementation of its initiatives to use the 
force more efficiently and such a plan should establish implementation 
objectives and time frames, assign responsibility, identify resources, 
and develop performance measures to use the force more efficiently. In 
its comments, the department noted that it has put in place some 
mechanisms to capture and track activities that enable it to use the 
force more efficiently. For example, it is now tracking the services' 
military-to-civilian conversions and documenting the results in its 
budget exhibits. The department also noted that it has established a 
forum for OSD and service officials to discuss and track the services' 
initiatives to reduce stress on the force. We believe that the 
department's approach represents positive steps. However, we believe 
that OSD should consider taking additional actions to clearly assign 
responsibility and develop comprehensive plans for implementing 
initiatives and measuring their progress. Critical elements of such 
plans would include identifying resources and developing mechanisms to 
measure outcomes and means to compare program results to performance 
goals. By embracing these management principles, OSD and service 
officials can help decision makers determine if initiatives are 
achieving their desired results and take corrective actions as needed.

We are sending copies of this report to other appropriate congressional 
committees and the Secretary of Defense. We will also make copies 
available to other interested parties upon request. In addition, the 
report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://
www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 
512-4402. Major contributors to this report at listed in appendix III.

Signed by: 

Janet A. St. Laurent: 
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:

List of Committees:

The Honorable Saxby Chambliss: 
The Honorable Ben Nelson: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
United States Senate:

The Honorable John M. McHugh: 
The Honorable Victor F. Snyder: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
House of Representatives:

[End of section]

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:

To assess the extent to which the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
(OSD) has conducted a data-based analysis of active military personnel 
needed to implement the national defense strategy, we identified and 
examined relevant laws, presidential documents, and the Department of 
Defense (DOD) guidance, reports, and analyses related to active 
military personnel and the defense strategy. These documents included 
the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, the defense strategy issued 
as part of the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, the National 
Military Strategy of the United States of America 2004, the Defense 
Manpower Requirements Report Fiscal Year 2005, the Secretary of 
Defense's Annual Report to the President and the Congress for 2003, and 
the Department of Defense Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal 
Year 2004. Although the total force includes active military personnel 
and National Guard and reserve forces, our review focused on active 
military personnel because Congress considered and passed legislation 
in 2004 to increase their numbers. We examined the services' guidance 
on processes for determining personnel requirements for the total force 
to identify the methodologies, time frames, and organizations involved 
in these processes. We also obtained and analyzed the results of the 
services' requirements processes and studies, and we discussed their 
status with officials responsible for managing these efforts at DOD 
organizations. These organizations included, but are not limited to, 
the Army's Offices of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Personnel and for 
Operations and Plans, and the Army's Programs Analysis and Evaluation 
Directorate; the U.S. Army Forces Command; the Air Force's Deputy 
Chiefs of Staff for Personnel and for Plans and Programs; the Air Force 
Manpower Agency; the Air Force Personnel Center; the Navy's Deputy 
Chief of Naval Operation for Manpower and Personnel; the Marine Corps 
Manpower and Reserve Affairs; and the Marine Corps Combat Development 
Command.

Because it did not fall within the scope of our review, we did not 
assess the services' methodologies or validate the results of their 
requirements analyses. We also examined guidance on the services' 
processes for allocating manpower resources. We identified criteria for 
examining workforce levels through our products on strategic human 
capital management and consulting with our staff with expertise in this 
area. Testimonial evidence was obtained from officials assigned to (1) 
the Offices of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Under 
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and the Under 
Secretary of Defense for Comptroller; (2) the Office of Program 
Analysis and Evaluation; and (3) the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 
addition, we analyzed transcripts of public briefings and congressional 
testimony presented by OSD officials. We reviewed DOD's fiscal year 
2005 Defense Manpower Requirements Report and DOD's fiscal years 2003 
and 2004 Performance and Accountability Reports to determine the manner 
and extent to which OSD evaluates end strength in fulfilling statutory 
reporting requirements pertaining to force management. We reviewed our 
prior work on the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review to ascertain whether 
this process included an explicit assessment of active duty personnel. 
To gain an independent perspective on the OSD role in analyzing the 
number of active military personnel needed to implement the national 
defense strategy, we interviewed a former Assistant Secretary of 
Defense.

To assess the extent to which OSD has a plan to implement initiatives 
to make more efficient use of active military personnel and evaluate 
their results, we analyzed available internal DOD documentation such as 
briefings, memoranda, and reports that identified DOD's plans and time 
frames. We obtained, analyzed, and compared OSD's and the services' 
fiscal year 2004 and 2005 targets to ascertain the differences. Also, 
we compared the services' fiscal year 2004 results with the services' 
fiscal year 2004 plans. To understand the reasons for any differences, 
we discussed their status and implications with officials responsible 
for managing these efforts at DOD organizations including, but not 
limited to, the Offices of the Under Secretaries of Defense for Policy, 
for Personnel and Readiness, and for Comptroller; the Army's Offices of 
the Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Personnel and for Operations and Plans; 
the U.S. Army Forces Command; the Air Force's Deputy Chiefs of Staff 
for Personnel; the Navy's Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower 
and Personnel; and the Marine Corps' Combat Development Command. We 
limited our review to the major initiatives that were identified by 
these officials and emphasized by the Secretary of Defense in his 
testimony[Footnote 25] because DOD officials did not have a 
comprehensive document that listed or described all the initiatives. We 
held further discussions with service officials and obtained and 
analyzed written responses to our questions to (1) identify the actions 
that the services took or will take in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 to 
implement the initiatives and (2) fully understand the challenges that 
the services may face with implementation. Also, we reviewed DOD's 
fiscal year 2005 budget request to assess DOD's expected costs for 
military-to-civilian conversions. To identify the extent to which DOD 
had implemented mandated reductions in major headquarters staff, we 
reviewed the governing directives and analyzed DOD's draft budget 
exhibits for fiscal year 2004, which contained data on actual 
reductions for the services and other defense organizations for fiscal 
year 2003 and estimated reductions for fiscal years 2004 and 2005. We 
also interviewed an OSD official and obtained data from the services to 
identify whether they collected data on the extent to which military 
personnel affected by headquarters reductions were reassigned to 
warfighting forces. Moreover, we conducted interviews with officials 
from the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the 
Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps and reviewed DOD 
guidance to understand DOD's process for managing conversions of 
military positions to civilian or contractor positions. Further, we 
reviewed our prior audit work related to the conversion of military 
positions to civilian or contactor positions, the competitive sourcing 
process, and headquarters reductions to enhance our understanding of 
DOD's ongoing efforts to achieve efficiencies. Our work was conducted 
in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; Atlanta, Georgia; and San 
Antonio, Texas.

We performed our work from August 2003 through January 2005 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards and 
determined that data, other than those used for the efficiency 
initiatives, were sufficiently reliable to answer our objectives. We 
interviewed data sources about how they ensure their own data accuracy, 
and we reviewed their data collection methods, standard operating 
procedures, and other internal control measures. Concerning the fiscal 
year 2004 data for the military-to-civilian conversions and rebalancing 
initiatives, we determined that the Navy's and the Marine Corps' data 
were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our objectives. We 
considered the Army's and the Air Force's military-to-civilian 
conversion and rebalancing skills data for fiscal year 2004 to be of 
undetermined reliability because the two services did not respond to 
our requests to provide documentation for the controls they use to 
ensure the accuracy of their data. Even though those services' 
officials presented the fiscal year 2004 data as their official 
numbers, we cannot attest to their reliability. However, in the context 
in which the data were presented, we determined the usage to be 
appropriate because the fiscal year 2004 data did not constitute the 
sole support for our findings, conclusions, and recommendations. 
Further, if the fiscal year 2004 results were revised, our conclusions 
would remain unchanged.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:

PERSONNEL AND READINESS:

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE:

4000 DEFENSE PENTAGON: 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20301-4000:

JAN 12 2005:

Ms. Janet A. St. Laurent:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, N.W.: 
Washington, DC 20548:

Dear Ms. St. Laurent:

This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft 
report, "MILITARY PERSONNEL: DoD Needs to Conduct a Data-Driven 
Analysis of Active Military Personnel Levels Required to Implement the 
Defense Strategy," GAO Code 350333/GAO-05-200, dated December 17, 2004.

The Department generally concurs with the report. Assessing the total 
force structure needed to implement the Defense strategy is an inherent 
part the Quadrennial Defense Review Report and we fully intend to meet 
those objectives. Regarding the Departments' efforts to reduce stress 
on the force, we have several mechanisms in place to monitor and 
document the outstanding work the Services are doing to become more 
effective and efficient.

Enclosed are our comments in response to your recommendations and also 
included are some technical review comments. The DoD appreciates the 
opportunity to comment on the draft report.

Sincerely,

Signed by: 

Jeanne B. Fites: 
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense: 
Program Integration:

Enclosure As stated:

GAO DRAFT REPORT - DATED DECEMBER 17, 2004 GAO CODE 350333/GAO-05-200:

"MILITARY PERSONNEL: DoD Needs to Conduct a Data-Driven Analysis of 
Active Military Personnel Levels Required to Implement the Defense 
Strategy"

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS:

RECOMMENDATION 1: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense 
conduct a review of active military personnel requirements as part of 
the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This review should include a 
detailed analysis of how the Services currently allocate active 
military forces to key missions required by the Defense strategy and 
should examine the need for changes in overall personnel levels and in 
the allocation of personnel in response to new missions and changes in 
the Defense strategy. (Page 31/GAO Draft Report):

DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs. Legislation requires the Secretary of 
Defense to conduct a comprehensive examination of Defense strategy 
every four years. Section, 118 (b) (2) of Title 10, United States Code, 
requires that the QDR "define sufficient force structure, force 
modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of 
the defense program of the United States associated with that national 
defense strategy that would be required to execute successfully the 
full range of missions called for in that national defense strategy; 
and (3) to identify (A) the budget plan that would be required to 
provide sufficient resources to execute successfully the full range of 
missions called for in that national defense strategy at a low-to-
moderate level of risk, and (B) any additional resources (beyond those 
programmed in the current future-years defense program) required to 
achieve such a level of risk."

We are initiating the 2005 review recognizing that we are a nation at 
war. DoD fully intends to meet the requirements set forth for the QDR 
and to report its assessment as required in Title 10. The objective of 
QDR is to determine the right strategy and establish Defense programs 
for the next 20 years. As required by the legislation, manning and 
balancing the force for the 21st century will be addressed. As the 
guidance, terms of reference, and work plans for QDR 2005 are developed 
analysis and data issues will be addressed. It is important to note 
that the review will include more than just the active force, it will 
also include the Reserves. Any analysis completed must account for the 
Total Force.

RECOMMENDATION 2: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense 
should summarize and include in its Quadrennial Defense Review report 
to Congress DoD's conclusions about appropriate personnel levels for 
each of the Services and describe the key assumptions guiding DoD's 
analysis, the methodology used to evaluate requirements, and how the 
risks associated with various alternative personnel force levels were 
evaluated.

(Page 31/GAO Draft Report):

DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs. Comments same as above:

RECOMMENDATION 3: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense 
develop a detailed plan to manage implementation of DoD's initiatives 
to use the force more efficiently. Such a plan should establish 
implementation objectives and time frames, assign responsibility, 
identify resources, and develop performance measures to enable DoD to 
evaluate the results of the initiatives in allocating a greater 
proportion of the active force to warftghting positions. (Page 31 & 32/
GAO Draft Report):

DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs. The effective implementation of actions to 
reduce the stress on the Force is paramount to mission success. DoD has 
put in place mechanisms to capture and track these activities. For 
example, we track through an OSD database, the execution of the 
Military/Civilian conversions for the Services and provide 
documentation of those efforts as part of the budget exhibits. 
Additionally, we have two ongoing Integrated Process Teams (IPTs) with 
Service representation. These IPTs provide a forum for the OSD and 
Service staffs to discuss, frame and accurately capture Service 
initiatives to reduce stress.

The following is GAO's comment on the department's letter dated January 
12, 2005.

GAO Comment:

1. The department's response correlates to the second part of our first 
recommendation.

[End of section]

Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contacts:

Janet St. Laurent, (202) 512-4402: 
Margaret G. Morgan, (202) 512-8975:

Acknowledgments:

In addition to the persons named above, Deborah Colantonio, Susan K. 
Woodward, Paul Rades, Leland Cogliani, Michelle Munn, Margaret Best, 
Cheryl Weissman, Kenneth E. Patton, John G. Smale Jr., and Jennifer R. 
Popovic also made major contributions to this report.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Throughout this report, the term "DOD" refers to OSD and the 
services.

[2] GAO, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).

[3] 10 U.S.C. §118.

[4] 10 U.S.C. § 115(e).

[5] 10 U.S.C. § 123a(a).

[6] Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist 
Attacks, Pres. Proc. No. 7,463, 66 Fed. Reg. 48, 199 (Sept. 14, 2001); 
Exec. Order No. 13,223, Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces 
to Active Duty and Delegating Certain Authorities to the Secretary of 
Defense and the Secretary of Transportation, 66 Fed. Reg. 48,201 (Sept. 
14, 2001).

[7] Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375, § 401 (2004).

[8] GAO-02-373SP.

[9] Pub. L. No. 106-65, § 901(a), codified at 10 U.S.C. §118.

[10] Force structure represents the numbers, size, and composition of 
the units that comprise U.S. forces, for example, ships or air wings.

[11] Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report 
(Washington, D.C., Sept. 30, 2001).

[12] Department of Defense, Performance and Accountability Report 
Fiscal Year 2003 (Washington, D.C., Dec. 23, 2003).

[13] Department of Defense, Performance and Accountability Report 
Fiscal Year 2003 (Washington, D.C., Dec. 23, 2003).

[14] Stop loss authority is provided by 10 U.S.C. §12305.

[15] Department of Defense, Performance and Accountability Report 
Fiscal Year 2004 (Washington, D.C., Nov. 15, 2004). The department's 
data were based on results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2004; 
we report the final fiscal year 2004 results in table 1. 

[16] Department of Defense, Defense Manpower Requirements Report Fiscal 
Year 2005 (Washington, D.C., Mar. 2004).

[17] GAO, Force Structure: Streamlining Plans Could Enable Navy to 
Reduce Personnel Below Fiscal Year 1999 Goal, GAO/NSIAD-97-90 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 18, 1997).

[18] Pub. L. No. 103-62.

[19] With the exception of the Navy and the Marine Corps, we were 
unable to determine the reliability of the fiscal year 2004 data for 
the numbers of completed positions related to military-to-civilian 
conversions and rebalancing of the active and reserve components. 
Further information on our data reliability assessment appears in 
appendix I.

[20] DOD conducts annual reviews of governmental positions to satisfy 
the reporting requirements of the Federal Activities Inventory Reform 
Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-270.

[21] We did not include in this total about 4,100 security positions 
originally filled by Army National Guard personnel that the Army 
replaced with contractor personnel because this action did not result 
in an increase of active military personnel available for warfighting 
duties.

[22] As we reported, DOD data indicated that conducting competitive 
sourcing studies takes an average of 20 to 35 months to complete. See 
GAO, Defense Management: DOD Faces Challenges Implementing Its Core 
Competency Approach and A-76 Competitions, GAO-03-818 (Washington, 
D.C.: July 15, 2003).

[23] Reassigning active military personnel from a position in a low-
demand skill to a position in a high-demand skill is commonly referred 
to as military-to-military conversions. The services' targets approved 
by OSD represent military-to-military conversions. They do not include 
converting military positions to civilian or contractor performance or 
applying new technologies that may reduce the need for military 
positions. 

[24] GAO, Military Personnel: Navy Actions Needed to Optimize Ship Crew 
Size and Reduce Total Ownership Costs, GAO-03-520 (Washington, D.C.: 
June 9, 2003).

[25] Statement of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld before 
the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Feb. 4, 2004.

GAO's Mission:

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of 
Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional 
responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability 
of the federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use 
of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides 
analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make 
informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO's commitment to 
good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, 
integrity, and reliability.

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony:

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through the Internet. GAO's Web site ( www.gao.gov ) contains 
abstracts and full-text files of current reports and testimony and an 
expanding archive of older products. The Web site features a search 
engine to help you locate documents using key words and phrases. You 
can print these documents in their entirety, including charts and other 
graphics.

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and 
correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as "Today's Reports," on its 
Web site daily. The list contains links to the full-text document 
files. To have GAO e-mail this list to you every afternoon, go to 
www.gao.gov and select "Subscribe to e-mail alerts" under the "Order 
GAO Products" heading.

Order by Mail or Phone:

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 
each. A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent 
of Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or 
more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. 
Orders should be sent to:

U.S. Government Accountability Office

441 G Street NW, Room LM

Washington, D.C. 20548:

To order by Phone:

	

Voice: (202) 512-6000:

TDD: (202) 512-2537:

Fax: (202) 512-6061:

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs:

Contact:

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470:

Public Affairs:

Jeff Nelligan, managing director,

NelliganJ@gao.gov

(202) 512-4800

U.S. Government Accountability Office,

441 G Street NW, Room 7149

Washington, D.C. 20548: