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Hunter Chairman The Honorable Ike Skelton Ranking Minority Member Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives Terrorist incidents within the United States and abroad have underscored the Department of Defense's (DOD) need to safeguard military personnel and infrastructure from potential terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD).' While many of the department's past efforts have focused on enhancing protection and response capabilities against high-yield explosives, the new security environment underscores the need for the department to expand its safeguards to include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents. To address these potential threats, the department has begun to direct billions of dollars toward departmentwide initiatives designed to safeguard personnel and facilities. At the same time, the military services are continuing to pursue initiatives at specific installations to lessen their vulnerabilities to terrorist activities. In recent years, both legislative actions and our prior work have focused on DOD's need to develop an effective program to improve its installation preparedness against terrorists' incidents. In response to a committee mandate2 to review DOD's plans for improving installation preparedness 1 DOD defines weapons of mass destruction as weapons that are capable of a high 2S. Rep. No. 107-62, at 352 (2001). for WMD, we concluded in an April 2002 report that while the department had made some progress, it did not have a comprehensive plan or overall framework to guide its installation preparedness improvement efforts.3 We also discussed with the department during the course of that work the importance of clearly articulating the national, regional, and local response capabilities that would be developed and integrated with the civilian community so that unnecessary redundant capabilities could be avoided. Following our initial assessment and report, in September 2002, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum that called for the development of a departmentwide integrated CBRNE approach to installation preparedness, with complete integration of policies, technologies, equipment, and operational concepts. The memorandum noted that the department would begin providing all installation personnel, including military and civilian personnel, contractors, and others who live or work on base, with protection against the wider range of threats. Also following our initial report, Congress, in section 1402 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 (see app. I), directed the Secretary of Defense to develop a comprehensive plan, with annual updates in 2004, 2005, and 2006, for improving the preparedness of military installations worldwide for terrorist incidents, including attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. The legislation also directed us to review DOD's plan and provide our assessment to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. In September 2003, the department complied with the section 1402 mandate by submitting its plan, entitled "Report to Congress on Preparedness of Military Installations for Preventing and Responding to Terrorist Incidents." This report summarizes our assessment of DOD's September 2003 report to Congress. Specifically, it addresses two questions: (1) Does the department's report represent a comprehensive plan that can guide installation preparedness efforts? and (2) What obstacles, if any, hinder 3 U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Preparedness of Military Installations for Incidents Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, GAO-02-644R (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 2002). * Pub. L. 107-314, §1402 (2002). Results in Brief the department's ability to develop and effectively implement a In conducting our assessment, we examined DOD's 2003 report to We conducted our review between April 2003 and May 2004 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Further information on our scope and methodology appears in appendix II. While DOD's September 2003 report generally met the requirements of section 1402 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 by discussing all of the legislatively required elements, the report does not represent a comprehensive, results-oriented management plan to help guide installation preparedness improvement efforts. For example, the report described annual performance goals that were general in nature and did not have adequate metrics to gauge progress, it did not describe a 5 Congress enacted the Government Performance and Results Act to provide for, among other things, the establishment of strategic planning and performance measurement in the federal government. Pub. L. 103-62 (2003). |