Rumsfeld blames procurement scandal on lack of ‘adult supervision’
Turnover was too high in the politically appointed ranks above Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun, Defense secretary says.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumfeld said Tuesday that a lack of "adult supervision" of a key Air Force procurement official led to the biggest procurement scandal to hit the Pentagon in decades.
Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference that a high rate of turnover among political appointees led to too high a degree of independence for Darleen Druyun, the former No. 2 procurement official at the Air Force. Last month, Druyun was sentenced to nine months in jail after admitting to favoring Boeing in several different contract negotiations before taking a $250,000-a-year job with the Pentagon's second-largest contractor.
Rumsfeld said that during Druyun's service as the Air Force's deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and management from 1993 to 2002, the people in positions above her, including the Air Force secretary and the service's assistant secretary for acquisition, rotated in and out of their jobs several times. Druyun's military counterpart, a three-star general, had limited authority to make acquisition decisions.
"When you have that long a period of time with that person the only continuity and no one above her and no one below her, I'm told what she did was acquire a great deal of authority and make a lot of decisions, and there was very little adult supervision above, below, or on the side," Rumsfeld said.
He added that the Defense Department typically operates with 20 percent to 25 percent vacancies in presidentially appointed jobs because of delays due to ethics reviews, FBI background checks and the Senate confirmation process. He said there is "too much turbulence" in top Defense jobs on both the military and civilian sides.
"Some things need to be changed," Rumfeld said, to prevent future abuses of power. But he was careful to avoid criticizing Air Force Secretary James Roche or the service's acquisition chief, Marvin Sambur, both of whom resigned recently. Indeed, Rumsfeld said Roche and Sambur had stepped up oversight of Druyun, which he said forced her to retire early.
Already, the Pentagon has taken several steps in response to the scandal, including:
- Ordering the Defense Contract Management Agency to review all contracts Druyun oversaw, dating back to 1993, for any hints of favoritism.
- Asking the Defense Science Board to review the current procurement system and recommend changes to prevent future abuses.
- Modifying internal guidelines to require senior managers to certify they are aware of ethics rules when filing annual financial disclosure statements.
- Canceling a multibillion-dollar contract Druyun had negotiated to lease tanker aircraft from Boeing.
"I simply cannot believe that one person, acting alone, can rip off taxpayers out of possibly billions of dollars. This appears to be a case of either a systemic failure in procurement oversight, willful blindness or rank corruption. Either way, full accountability among Air Force leadership is in order," McCain said.