Defense Department's Self-Assessment Committee Determines It Needs Another Committee to Assess Its Assessment
Military Precision Meets Administrative Confusion
The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that its Internal Efficiency Review Assessment Board has successfully completed its 18-month mission to determine whether the Pentagon's 2022 Operational Streamlining Review was worth conducting in the first place. The verdict, delivered in a 847-page report that sources describe as "comprehensive yet somehow incomplete," is that more assessment is urgently needed.
"We've made tremendous progress in understanding what we don't yet understand about what we previously thought we understood," explained Colonel Patricia Hendricks, speaking on behalf of the unnamed officials who chair the committee that oversees the board that evaluates the commission responsible for the review. "It's exactly the kind of circular clarity our taxpayers deserve."
The original 2022 review, which cost $12.3 million and took two years to complete, examined whether the Pentagon's procurement processes could be made more efficient. Its findings, summarized in a 1,200-page document titled "Recommendations for Potential Optimization Opportunities in Administrative Workflow Enhancement," recommended forming a committee to study the recommendations.
The Review Industrial Complex
What followed was an administrative ballet of breathtaking complexity. The Internal Efficiency Review Assessment Board was established in January 2023 with a mandate to evaluate whether the original review had been conducted efficiently enough to justify its conclusions about efficiency.
"We couldn't simply accept the findings without first determining if the process that generated the findings was itself worthy of generating findings," noted Dr. Marcus Thornfield, a senior analyst with the Government Accountability Institute, a think tank that specializes in analyzing organizations that analyze other organizations. "It's basic due diligence, really."
The Assessment Board's work has been thorough by any measure. They've conducted 347 interviews with personnel who may have been involved in the original review, held 89 closed-door sessions to discuss the methodology of discussing methodology, and commissioned four separate studies on the optimal font size for government reports (conclusion: "further study needed").
Spawning Season
The Assessment Board's findings have proven so complex that they've necessitated the creation of three specialized sub-committees: the Findings Verification Sub-Committee, the Methodology Assessment Working Group, and the Sub-Committee Oversight Coordination Panel.
Each sub-committee has been allocated its own budget, office space, and catering allowance. The combined catering budget of $2.7 million has raised eyebrows among fiscal watchdogs, particularly given that the Sub-Committee Oversight Coordination Panel meets exclusively via video conference.
"Quality refreshments are essential to quality oversight," explained an unnamed Pentagon spokesperson when asked about the $847-per-meeting pastry budget. "You can't put a price on institutional Danish."
The Findings Verification Sub-Committee has already determined that it lacks sufficient expertise to verify its own verification processes, leading to whispered discussions about establishing a Verification Verification Task Force.
Expert Analysis
"This is exactly what we expected to happen, which is why we didn't expect it," said Professor Janet Williamson of the Center for Administrative Studies at Georgetown University. "The Pentagon has created a perfect storm of procedural thoroughness that's so thorough it's forgotten what it was supposed to be thorough about."
Defense industry analysts have praised the Pentagon's commitment to self-reflection, even as they've expressed mild confusion about what's being reflected upon.
"It's refreshing to see an organization take such a methodical approach to understanding its own methods," commented retired General Robert Hayes, now a consultant with Defense Dynamics Solutions. "Though I'll admit, after reading the executive summary of the preliminary findings, I'm not entirely sure what the original question was."
The Fourth Committee
In a development that surprised no one familiar with Pentagon administrative procedures, sources confirm that a fourth entity—tentatively named the Review Assessment Evaluation Panel—has been quietly established to determine whether the Assessment Board's assessment of the original review has itself been conducted with sufficient rigor.
The Panel's formation was announced in a memo that was immediately classified, then declassified, then re-classified pending a review of the declassification process.
"We're committed to getting this right," said Colonel Hendricks, "even if it takes several more committees to figure out what 'this' is and what 'right' looks like in this context."
Looking Forward, Backward, and Sideways
The Pentagon expects to have preliminary findings from the Review Assessment Evaluation Panel by late 2025, assuming the Panel doesn't determine that it needs additional panels to assess its assessment capabilities.
Meanwhile, the original 2022 Operational Streamlining Review continues to gather dust in a filing cabinet in the Pentagon's sub-basement, its recommendations for improving efficiency serving as a paperweight for subsequent reports about the importance of not using reports as paperweights.
As one senior Defense official noted on condition of anonymity, "We may not know what we're reviewing anymore, but we're reviewing it with unprecedented thoroughness. And really, isn't that what America's all about?"