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Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command shake up
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John Szalay
Mar 31, 2014, 3:38:27 PM3/31/14
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Hagel announces changes to POW/MIA accounting command
By William Cole
Mar 31, 2014 ASSOCIATED PRESS
The embattled Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii will no longer
report to U.S. Pacific Command and is instead being assigned with other
agencies to the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy,
officials said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced changes today to the handful of
agencies that investigate, recover and identify missing American war dead
after reviews found the longstanding system was inefficient and
dysfunctional.
According to officials, the changes will:
>> Align JPAC, headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, along
with the the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office in Washington, D.C.,
and parts of the Air Force Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory in San
Antonio, Texas, under the direct supervision of the Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy.
>> Establish medical oversight of all research.
>> Establish one case data management system.
>> Expand public-private partnerships to recover missing war dead.
The Pentagon's efforts to recover Americans missing from past wars are
fragmented, overlap and are hampered by interagency disputes --
inefficiencies that threaten a congressional mandate to identify 200
missing service members by 2015, the Government Accountability Office
said in a July report. The Defense Department has averaged about 70
identifications a year, while more than 83,000 Americans remain missing.
Of those, between 25,000 and 35,000 are estimated to be recoverable.
"DoD's capability and capacity to accomplish its missing persons
accounting mission is being undermined by long-standing leadership
weaknesses and a fragmented organizational structure," the GAO found.
The GAO report followed on the heels of an internal JPAC efficiency
report that harshly criticized "military tourism" trips to Europe by
JPAC staffers as extravagances that included luxury hotels and fine
dining. The internal report, researched in 2010, described aspects of
JPAC as dysfunctional -- a charge still leveled today by some staffers
who complain that interdepartmental rivalries interfere with the
recovery mission.
JPAC is finishing up a new $82 million headquarters and lab at Hickam and
expects the facility to be done in late July. The center will be named
for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.
By William Cole
Mar 31, 2014 ASSOCIATED PRESS
The embattled Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii will no longer
report to U.S. Pacific Command and is instead being assigned with other
agencies to the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy,
officials said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced changes today to the handful of
agencies that investigate, recover and identify missing American war dead
after reviews found the longstanding system was inefficient and
dysfunctional.
According to officials, the changes will:
>> Align JPAC, headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, along
with the the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office in Washington, D.C.,
and parts of the Air Force Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory in San
Antonio, Texas, under the direct supervision of the Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy.
>> Establish medical oversight of all research.
>> Establish one case data management system.
>> Expand public-private partnerships to recover missing war dead.
The Pentagon's efforts to recover Americans missing from past wars are
fragmented, overlap and are hampered by interagency disputes --
inefficiencies that threaten a congressional mandate to identify 200
missing service members by 2015, the Government Accountability Office
said in a July report. The Defense Department has averaged about 70
identifications a year, while more than 83,000 Americans remain missing.
Of those, between 25,000 and 35,000 are estimated to be recoverable.
"DoD's capability and capacity to accomplish its missing persons
accounting mission is being undermined by long-standing leadership
weaknesses and a fragmented organizational structure," the GAO found.
The GAO report followed on the heels of an internal JPAC efficiency
report that harshly criticized "military tourism" trips to Europe by
JPAC staffers as extravagances that included luxury hotels and fine
dining. The internal report, researched in 2010, described aspects of
JPAC as dysfunctional -- a charge still leveled today by some staffers
who complain that interdepartmental rivalries interfere with the
recovery mission.
JPAC is finishing up a new $82 million headquarters and lab at Hickam and
expects the facility to be done in late July. The center will be named
for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.
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