The office of Defense Department chief information officer should become stronger than ever as a result of a planned reorganization of DoD information technology functions, top Pentagon officials told a Senate panel Sept. 28.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said August 9 he will eliminate the Defense CIO's current place in the Pentagon hierarchy, which is assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration. The reorganization is part of a Gates initiative to redirect $100 billion in overhead spending over the next five years into higher-priority warfighting needs and modernization programs.

"We're going to pull in the resource from the Joint Staff J6, from [the Defense Information Systems Agency] and potentially some functions from other areas to unify the IT oversight in the department," said Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We think we'll end up with a stronger CIO," he added. The office of DoD CIO has been vacant since John Grimes stepped down in April 2009. The Obama administration's March nomination of California state CIO Teri Takai to fill the position has been on hold since Gates made his reorganization intentions public.

In his written testimony, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright said the need to clarify organizational IT roles "has become obvious."

"Multiple organizations on multiple staffs at multiple layers of our hierarchy exist to oversee IT. The result is a complex web of authorities and responsibilities that is unclear and difficult to navigate. Combatant commanders simply do not understand what organization they need to visit in order to get work executed," he wrote.

During the hearing, Pentagon acquisition czar Ashton Carter also discussed a related initiative to change Defense contracting practices. Carter--whose official title is undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics--has promised to shake up services acquisition by requiring more frequent recompetes and the inclusion of efficiency objectives in service contracts worth more than $1 billion.

"Most of our services are bought by people as an ancillary duty. They're, in a sense amateurs--they're trying to get something else done and they are issuing contracts for services," Carter said during the hearing.

Questioned about Gates's intention to also dissolve the Business Transformation Agency, Lynn replied that the agency was created before office of the DoD deputy chief management officer came into being. With the DCMO in place, Gates concluded that the BTA's functions overlap with that management office's and that by shutting down the BTA, oversight of modernization efforts wouldn't lessen but personnel could be reduced in the process, Lynn said.

In response to another senatorial question about the future of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, Cartwright said it remains unresolved. "Whether that becomes a standing organization independent of the conflict we're in, I think that's something we would take a very serious look at," he said.

Senators also expressed doubts over Gates's intention to shutter the Joint Forces Command on the grounds that jointness within the military no longer requires an entire command to enforce it.  

"Are we at the point where we can say, 'Mission accomplished'?" asked Sen. Joe Liebermann (I-Conn.).

"'Mission accomplished' is a dangerous statement," Lynn said. "The services today operate fundamentally differently now than we did in the 1991 Gulf War, and I believe that won't be reversed," he added.

For more:
- go to the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing webpage, replete with prepared statements, or go directly to the webcast

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