House Chairman: Not So Fast on Closing JFCOM The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has thrown a roadblock in the way of the Defense Department’s plan to cut $100 billion from its spending on overhead. Chairman Ike Skelton, D-MO, said the committee will not approve the initiative until Defense Secretary Robert Gates provides a justification for his decision to abolish the Joint Forces Command, the Business Transformation Agency and the Office of Network and Information Integration. Shutting down those units is a key part of Gates’ effort to chop spending on support services and redirect the money to warfighting. In a letter to the defense secretary, Skelton said DOD has not provided any explanation for the closures, despite repeated requests. As a result, he said, the committee is “unable to evaluate the rationale for the decisions.” “The committee will be unable to support any request for legislation or funding resulting from the efficiency initiative until the committee’s requests for information have been satisfied,” he wrote. JFCOM is headquartered in Norfolk, VA, and Virginia’s congressional delegation has lined up in opposition to Gates’ decision. Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb have proposed an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would require the secretary to provide a justification to Congress before closing any combatant command. The Senate is scheduled to consider the bill in its November lame-duck session. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, D-MI, has also expressed frustration that DOD has not explained the shutdowns. In announcing his decision to abolish JFCOM, Gates said its mission could be performed by other DOD units and it was heavily dependent on contractors. The command employs 1,600 civilian employees, 1,200 military personnel and more than 3,000 contractors, with a budget of around $1 billion . He said the Business Transformation Agency and the Office of Network Integration and Information were also redundant. “I concluded that our headquarters and support bureaucracies—military and civilian alike—have swelled to cumbersome and top heavy proportions, grown over-reliant on contractors and grown accustomed to operating with little consideration to cost,” he said at an Aug. 9 media briefing.