As word trickled out on Capitol Hill this week that The Straus Military Reform Project would drop a bomb that would blow apart the Air Force’s “Operation Destroy CAS,” U.S. Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, shot a letter of concern off to Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, condemning their “shell game.”
McCain was referring to James’ testimony in which she emphasize “so strongly the Air Force’s 20-percent headquarters reductions.” McCain said in the letter that rather than make cuts, the USAF “simply moved money to fund the same positions elsewhere in the service.”
The accusation is especially damaging in light of the Strauss report. The USAF has used sequestration as an excuse for cutting the A-10. The USAF campaign to destroy the Close Air Support mission, carried out best by the A-10, has come to be known as Operation Destroy CAS.
According to McCain, “the 20-percent headquarters reductions were meant to make Defense Department operations more efficient while saving money for American taxpayers. But the conduct of the Air Force in response to this guidance seems to have produced no actual staff reductions and yielded no actual savings. The Senate Armed Services Committee has received no reprogramming request from the Air Force for savings generated in the headquarters budget. In reality, the Air Force pursued a shell game that simply moved money to fund the same positions elsewhere in the service.”
In his letter, McCain writes, “Before he was Secretary of Defense, Dr. Ash Carter released a memo as Deputy Defense Secretary indicating that the 20-percent headquarters cuts were designed to streamline DOD management functions and eliminate lower priority activities. While the 20-percent cut applies to budget dollars, Carter directed organizations to strive for a goal of a 20-percent reduction in government civilian staff. A directive from this initiative was that subordinate headquarters should not grow as a result of reductions in higher headquarters.”
“After touting the speed at which the Air Force had achieved a 20-percent headquarters reduction, you later conceded that none of the Air Force civilians that were part of that reduction were actually removed from the payroll of the Air Force. Lower priority activities were not eliminated, as directed by Carter. In reality, the Air Force re-designated the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency as the Twenty-Fifth Air Force subordinate to Air Combat Command. The Air Force also stood up an Installation and Mission Support Center (IMSC) subordinate headquarters led by a two-star general and attendant support staff. These actions are directly contrary to Carter’s guidance of not growing subordinate headquarters,” wrote McCain.