TOPICS
TOPICS
Druyun scandal may lead to more vacancies at the Pentagon
The Defense Department's largest procurement scandal in decades likely will lead to more high-level departures at the Pentagon, according to a senior Air Force official.
"There are many people now lining up to leave," Marvin Sambur, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, told the Defense Writers Group in Washington on Wednesday.
Sambur and Air Force Secretary James Roche already are slated to leave their posts later this month--the highest-level casualties to date following revelations last year that former Air Force executive Darleen Druyun illegally favored Boeing in contract negotiations, in exchange for jobs for herself and members of her family.
Sambur said that Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and Gen. Gregory Martin, Air Force Materiel Command chief, were likely to leave as well. Neither has announced plans, although Wynne's nomination to become the permanent undersecretary died in the last Congress and is not being resubmitted.
"There's no way out of this until everybody leaves here and you start from scratch," Sambur adds.
Druyun is serving nine months in federal prison in Florida for violating conflict of interest laws. The Defense Contract Management Agency is now reviewing dozens of contracts she oversaw for nearly a decade for any signs of favoritism.
Sambur also confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had expanded the contract review to include those involving former Boeing Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears, who has admitted to illegally negotiating the job with Druyun and could be sentenced up to six months in jail next month. Sambur said that review could include some high-profile weapons contracts, among them the Army's Future Combat System and the Navy's F-18 fighter plane.
The Air Force acquisition community has come under sharp criticism, particularly from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for lax oversight and a controversial deal that Druyun first negotiated to lease tanker refueling aircraft from Boeing. McCain has put many Air Force general officer promotions on hold and blocked Roche's bid to become Army secretary due to concerns about Druyun and the now-stalled tanker deal.
Sambur said there will be a "leadership vacuum" in the Air Force until new appointees are confirmed and promotions are allowed to go forward. He asked rhetorically about who would want to take the jobs in light of the criticism that the service has faced from Congress in recent months.
The White House has yet to nominate a new Air Force secretary or a replacement for Sambur. In the meantime, Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets, who also heads the National Reconnaissance Office, will serve as acting Air Force secretary. Lt. Gen. John Corley, currently Sambur's deputy, will take over day-to-day acquisition management duties.
COMMENTS
- As is becoming obvious, Druyun's "problems" predated her search for employment. Sure you could say her earlier games were generalized to curry favor with the big contractors so she could eventually get a good job with one of them but more likely they had other reasons and causes. One reason is that she was willing to bend rules in exchange for political support when some General wanted to fire her. She got them fired! How? Because people "above the Generals" overrode the Generals. This means political apppointees or the Administration. I think this is the main reason and a detailed look at how she quashed her many critics is absolutely necessary. Many in Congress were afraid of her power. A secondary reason was that she was an "acquirer" in position but actually a contracting specialist. It is equivalent to having a mechanic called a "pilot" because he starts the aircraft! Contract specialists see every problem as a contracting opportunity while acquisition people look at the requirements and decide whether a "make or buy" will happen. Druyun presided over a massive outsourcing because she saw everything as a contract, and one she wanted to "simplify" by removing that pesky competition stuff. Removing competition and buying support from the OEM are inherently incestuous. GovExec.com reader Posted February 18, 2005 1:20 PM
- What will it take for the Air Force to learn? Ms Druyun was able to operate in a criminal manner and cost the US taxpayers billions of dollars, in large measure because she operated without adult supervision. General Martin, her previous boss had no experience in acquisition when he was overseeing her. So who do they put into the office now? According to the Air Force, (http://www.af.mil ) Lt Gen Corley will be overseeing the day to day operations of the service’s acquisition community. His background in acquisition? None. Folks may want to quibble and say that his 20 months in the Center for Studies and Analysis were acquisition, but that is not true. According to his official bio he was chief analyst without ever having been an analyst prior, so that was not acquisition. He did not work with Cost, Schedule, and Performance concerns. He did not deal with acquisition contract. Office work, yes, important stuff, yeah. But just not acquisition. Hey Air Force. How about it? Try putting someone into the office that knows something about the job. I don’t think that you would put in a flying wing commander who had never flown an aircraft, so why are those offices involved with billions of dollars and the future of the service open to those without expertise? GovExec.com reader Posted January 25, 2005 8:53 AM
- She is a typical government bureaucrat who is nothing less than a thief. Kids are dying everyday in Iraq while this scum is allowed to fat-cat it in a safe government job. Look at what happened to the VA regional office in Atlanta, Georgia where a supervisor and two of her co-horts embezzled over two million dollars before they were caught. Senator Chuck Grassley has been asked to look into this but no responses are received and no indictments handed down the last I heard. GovExec.com reader Posted January 18, 2005 4:57 PM
