Defense Acquisitions: Observations on Whether the Military Service Chiefs' Role in Managing and Overseeing Major Weapon Programs Should be Expanded

The Packard Commission, tasked by President Reagan to review defense management and organization, made a number of recommendations to improve the way DOD acquires weapon systems, including the need to establish unambiguous authority for overall acquisition policy, clear accountability for acquisition execution, and plain lines of command for those with program management reresponsibilities. Following the commissions recommendations, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 was enacted. Among other things, the Act created the position of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, now known as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics USDATL established the military departments as the force providers to the combatant commanders and mandated responsibility for acquisition to each respective military department. In addition, the Goldwater-Nichols Act directed each secretary to establish or designate a single office or other entity within each department to conduct the acquisition function. Prior to the act, the military departments often had offices in both the secretariat and the service chief organizations that had responsibilities for the management of the acquisition function. As we previously found, the act sought to eliminate parallel or duplicate organizations that might have existed, and strengthen civilian control by placing the single acquisition office in the secretariats. GAO, Acquisition Reform Military Departments Response to the Reorganization Act. Also, the President issued a directive that directed implementation of another Packard Commission recommendation, to establish a more streamlined acquisition chain of command in DOD. The reporting chain, which remains in place today, runs upward from a program manager, through a program executive officer PEO, to the service acquisition executive SAE, and to the defense acquisition executive DAE, which is USD ATL.