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Strac Trooper
 
Group: Registered User
Last Login: 9/14/2006 9:05 AM
Posts: 1,159,
Visits: 50
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Audit finds flaws in Guard, reserve mobilization tracking
A new congressional audit says the Pentagon has done a poor job tracking the mobilization of 300,000 reservists and National Guard members for wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Because of poor tracking systems and communications breakdowns, some reservists were deployed longer than the dates on their orders while others spent a year on alert but were never called up, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Thursday.
In addition, low-priority units that should have extra training ended up being mobilized on short notice, the GAO said.
“Mobilizations were also hampered because one-quarter of the Ready Reserve was not readily available,” the GAO report said, referring to reservists who are not affiliated with a specific unit. More than 70,000 of these reservists could not be mobilized because they had not met training requirements, the report said.
Defense Department officials have acknowledged widespread problems in how reservists are called up and say they are working on revamping the process, which was designed mainly for a nationwide mobilization against the former Soviet Union.
About 1.2 million members serve in the reserve and National Guard, augmenting an active-duty force of about 1.4 million. About 187,000 reservists currently are mobilized for active duty.
The GAO report said a big problem is that Defense Department computers cannot track the individuals and small units that typically have been needed for specialized missions or assignments. In addition, some services’ reserve and active-duty tracking systems are incompatible with each other.
Welcome to another Red Devil rehersal, only this time it's for real
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