Statement of Robert J. Lieberman Deputy Inspector General Department of Defense Before the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, House Committee on Government Reform on Defense Security Service: Mission Degradation

摘要

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the continuing and serious challenges facing the Department of Defense Personnel Security Program. As you know from your hearings in February and September 2000, the Department's ability to comply with Federal guidelines on security clearances and to carry out the several hundred thousand investigations needed annually for initial clearances or updates virtually collapsed during the late 1990's. The causes included: an ill-considered 40 percent cut in Defense Security Service staffing, with no proportionate decrease in workload; failure of the information system acquisition project that was supposed to facilitate productivity improvement; poor management oversight; and initial attempts to deal with declining investigative productivity by arbitrarily limiting the number of clearance investigation requests that could be submitted by managers and commanders.