Carlucci Appeals to Congress for Reforms

WASHINGTON —  Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci blamed Congress Thursday for creating many of the opportunities for military procurement corruption and urged lawmakers to act to eliminate them.

Carlucci acknowledged that the Pentagon itself needs to reform its weapons-buying practices but said that Congress has made itself too vulnerable to pressures from lobbyists who try to subvert the system by persuading Congress to put unneeded items in the budget or by obtaining confidential information from members or staff.

“The message being sent to industry is that there is a higher payoff for investment in lobbying than for investment in R&D; (research and development) and long-term productivity enhancement,” he said in a speech to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs. A copy was made available here.

No Indictments Yet

The speech is part of Carlucci’s continuing effort to respond to the military procurement investigation being carried out by the FBI and the Justice Department. Although no indictments have yet been issued, officials involved in the inquiry say that it involves as many as 85 defense contracts worth billions of dollars that may have been tainted by fraud or bribery of government officials.

So far, five civilian Pentagon purchasing officers have been relieved of their duties and one fired as a result of allegations in search warrants served by federal agents.

Carlucci has announced a number of steps to tighten the Pentagon’s weapons-buying program and punish abuses, but on Thursday he firmly rejected three proposed measures now before Congress to reform the $150-billion-a-year system.

He said that “each of these reform proposals may sound like a good idea, but each--upon deeper examination--would create its own problems if put into action.”

Nature of Proposals

The three proposals are an independent procurement agency, which would take weapons-buying decisions out of the hands of the individual military services; an independent Defense Department inspector general to investigate procurement abuses, and stronger “revolving door” laws to prevent officials from moving back and forth between the Pentagon and the arms industry.

Carlucci said that the military--the ultimate consumer of military hardware--must have a hand in picking the best equipment and the most qualified suppliers. He said that an independent auditing agency is not needed because there is no evidence that the current inspector general’s office has not done its job. And he defended the practice of officials moving in and out of the Pentagon as providing the necessary expertise to both government and private industry.

“This is not by any means a suggestion that reforms are not needed,” Carlucci said. “I am convinced that the system can be made to work better. But the last thing we need is a legislative rush to reform that produces not solutions but simply new and different problems . . . . “

He suggested five steps Congress should take to streamline its role in the Pentagon budgeting and procurement system. He said the current system has 17 “intervention points,” where lobbyists and others can influence deliberations, forcing the Pentagon to buy unneeded or unwanted items.

Suggestions Detailed

He urged these steps:

--Congress should combine the now-separate budget authorization and appropriations processes into a single budget review.

--Congress should reduce the “maze” of committees and subcommittees that now exercise overlapping roles.

--Congress should forbid members from hiding items not sought by the Administration in little-noticed amendments to budget bills and force them to introduce them as separate bills.

--Congress should shift to a two-year budget for the military to provide for more rational planning and cut down on the number of instances in which lobbyists can intervene.

--And Congress should fund more weapons on a multi-year basis, rather than debating each system’s budget every year.