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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to Congressional Requesters
September 1998
DOD COUNTERDRUG ACTIVITIES -
REPORTED COSTS DO NOT REFLECT
EXTENT OF DOD'S SUPPORT
GAO/NSIAD-98-231
Counterdrug Activities
(701131)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
DOD - Department of Defense
O&S - operating and support
OPTEMPO - Central Transfer Account and the military services'
operations
VAMOSC - Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-279766
September 23, 1998
The Honorable James M. Inhofe
Chairman
The Honorable Charles S. Robb
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Military Readiness
Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate
The Department of Defense (DOD) provides personnel, equipment, and
facilities in support of U.S. drug interdiction and other
counterdrug activities. The Office of National Drug Control Policy
reported that DOD's fiscal year 1999 budget request for these
activities is $882.8 million. Because you believe the reported funds
do not reflect the full extent of DOD's support, you asked us to
determine, for fiscal years 1994 through 1998 (1) the total operating
and support (O&S) costs that can be associated with counterdrug
activities and (2) the share of the original procurement costs of
those weapon systems most often used by the active component in
counterdrug activities.\1 Under the Foreign Assistance Act, DOD also
provides assistance to foreign countries in support of counterdrug
activities. You asked us to determine, for fiscal years 1994 through
1998, the amount of assistance DOD provided under section
506(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) of the act, hereafter referred to as 506(a)(2).
--------------------
\1 O&S costs are those resources required to operate and support a
system, a subsystem, or a major component during its useful life in
the operational inventory.
BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
The U.S. response to drug abuse and drug trafficking is to integrate
domestic and international efforts to reduce the demand and supply of
drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy was established by
the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. It is responsible for establishing
policies, priorities, and objectives for the nation's drug control
program. The Office has established five long-range goals as a basis
to reduce drug abuse, trafficking, and their consequences. DOD
supports each of these goals, as shown in table 1.
Table 1
National Drug Control Strategy Goals and
DOD's Support
Goal Description Examples of DOD's efforts
---- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
1 Educate and enable America's National Guard and service
youth to reject illegal drugs outreach programs (primarily
as well as alcohol and tobacco for youths) that assist
community groups.
2 Increase the safety of DOD components provide direct
America's citizens by support to drug law enforcement
substantially reducing drug- agencies in the form of
related crime and violence equipment and support services.
3 Reduce health and social costs DOD provides demand reduction,
to the public of illegal drug drug testing, education, and
use awareness programs for
uniformed and civilian
employees.
4 Shield America's air, land, and DOD provides personnel and
sea frontiers from the drug equipment to detect and monitor
threat drug trafficking to the United
States.
5 Break foreign and domestic drug DOD supports intelligence,
sources of supply detection, monitoring, and
interdiction efforts in foreign
countries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The National Drug Control Strategy, 1998: Budget Summary
and Ten-Year Plan.
DOD's counterdrug budget, as reported by the Office, is comprised of
two major categories: the Central Transfer Account and the military
departments' operations (OPTEMPO). The Office defines the Central
Transfer Account as a single budget line that accounts for all
associated DOD counterdrug resources, with the exception of active
component military personnel costs and military OPTEMPO.
Specifically, the account funds such items as special supply and
equipment purchases, reserve component military personnel costs, and
travel costs for individuals supporting counterdrug activities. The
military departments' OPTEMPO costs, currently funded in the
services' operation and maintenance accounts, are for fuel, spare
parts, and depot-level repairables for weapon systems used in
counterdrug activities. Table 2 shows DOD's reported counterdrug
spending for fiscal years 1994-98.
Table 2
DOD's Reported Counterdrug Spending for
Fiscal Years 1994-98
(Dollars in millions)
Fiscal year
----------------------------------
1998\
Category 1994 1995 1996 1997 a Total
-------------------------- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ======
Central Transfer Account $671.3 $721. $678. $806. $712. $3,590
3 4 2 9 .1
Military OPTEMPO 143.6 118.9 143.6 133.8 134.9 674.8
======================================================================
Total $814.9 $840. $822. $940. $847. $4,264
2 1 1 7 .9
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Totals do not add due to rounding.
\a Enacted budget authority for fiscal year 1998.
Source: Office of National Drug Control Policy's budget summaries
for 1995-98.
DOD provides assistance to foreign countries that support counterdrug
activities. An authority to transfer defense equipment and services
to support international narcotics control efforts is section
506(a)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
There are significant operating and support costs for counterdrug
activities that are not reflected in DOD's counterdrug reported costs
and funding requests. These include costs associated with military
services' weapon systems and costs for deployed personnel who are not
assigned to specific weapon systems. The costs associated with
weapon systems, if allocated to counterdrug activities, would total
in excess of $2 billion for fiscal years 1994 through 1996.\2 The
number of military personnel deployed in the United States who were
not assigned to specific weapon systems totaled about 14,000. These
individuals were assigned for various time periods between fiscal
year 1994 and 1996. Although we did not estimate the support costs
for these personnel, they would be in addition to the costs reported
by DOD and the $2 billion we estimated. According to DOD officials,
these operating and support costs are not included in DOD's
counterdrug budgets because they pertain to the existing force
structure that supports the national defense mission and would be
incurred regardless of the type of operations conducted. This
practice is consistent with the way DOD reports incremental costs for
contingency operations.
The military services use numerous weapon systems for counterdrug
activities that were purchased to support the national military
strategy. The weapon systems most often used for counterdrug
activities were the Air Force's E-3 aircraft, the Army's UH-60
helicopter, and the Navy's P-3 aircraft and Perry class frigate.
With the assistance of service officials, we developed a methodology
to allocate to counterdrug activities a share of the original
procurement costs of these systems. Using this methodology, we
calculated that about $150 million of the procurement costs for these
four systems could be allocated to counterdrug activities for fiscal
years 1994-97.\3
In fiscal years 1994 and 1995, there were no transfers of articles
and services to foreign countries under section 506(a)(2). In fiscal
years 1996 and 1997,\4 a total of $131 million in articles and
services were transferred from DOD under this authority.
--------------------
\2 Cost data were not yet available for fiscal years 1997 and 1998.
\3 Data were not yet available to estimate these costs for fiscal
year 1998.
\4 As of August 14, 1998, there had been no approved transfers of
equipment and services under this section for fiscal year 1998.
ADDITIONAL O&S COSTS ASSOCIATED
WITH DOD'S COUNTERDRUG
ACTIVITIES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
There are significant O&S costs associated with the military
services' weapon systems used for counterdrug activities that are not
reflected in DOD's counterdrug reported costs and funding requests.
These include intermediate and depot-level maintenance costs, active
military personnel salaries and benefits, and base operating support
costs. To identify these additional costs, we primarily used the
services' Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs
(VAMOSC) database,\5 which allocates O&S costs by weapon system. We
determined that there were O&S costs for major weapon systems (ships
and aircraft) used in counterdrug activities in excess of $2 billion
over the $406.2 million in OPTEMPO costs reported by DOD for fiscal
years 1994 through 1996.\6 Figure 1 compares these additional costs
to DOD's reported costs by fiscal year.
Figure 1: Additional O&S Costs
and DOD's Reported OPTEMPO
Costs for Counterdrug
Activities
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Totals do not add due to rounding.
Source: Developed by GAO using DOD and service data.
Our estimate incorporated all O&S costs for these systems reported in
the VAMOSC database. However, each service reports O&S data
differently. To the extent possible, we obtained additional data
from other service sources to develop comparable costs across the
services and added the additional costs to the VAMOSC data. For
example, because Navy installation support costs are not captured in
its VAMOSC database, we calculated these costs based on average cost
factors and personnel data provided by the Navy. We were unable to
obtain the same categories of data for the services in all cases.
In addition to O&S costs associated with weapon systems, there were
support costs associated with personnel deployed for counterdrug
activities who were not assigned to specific weapon systems, such as
personnel in intelligence units. For example, about 14,000 military
personnel were assigned to counterdrug activities in the United
States between fiscal year 1994 and 1996 who were not associated with
specific weapon systems. During those years, these personnel were
assigned to missions for varying lengths of time on a rotational
basis. The pay, benefits, and support costs associated with these
personnel were in addition to the counterdrug costs reported by DOD
and the $2 billion we estimated.\7
DOD officials indicated that these additional O&S costs are not
included in DOD's counterdrug budget because they pertain to the
existing force structure that supports the national defense mission
and, therefore, they would be incurred regardless of the type of
operations conducted. This practice is consistent with the way DOD
reports incremental costs for contingency operations.
--------------------
\5 An information system for reporting historical weapon system O&S
costs derived from a wide range of service data sources.
\6 VAMOSC data were not yet available for fiscal years 1997 and 1998.
\7 We did not estimate a cost value for these personnel because their
length of deployment and military rank data were not readily
available.
PRO RATA SHARE OF PROCUREMENT
COSTS FOR MOST USED WEAPON
SYSTEMS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4
To estimate the pro rata share of the original procurement costs of
weapon systems used most often by the active component in counterdrug
activities, we used the total flying hours or steaming days these
systems were used for counterdrug activities. We identified three
types of aircraft and one type of ship for this analysis--the Air
Force E-3 aircraft, Army UH-60 helicopter, and Navy P-3 aircraft and
Perry class frigate. For the four systems, we obtained their
original procurement costs and their original expected lives (in
flying hours or steaming days). Using these factors, we computed a
cost per hour/day that could be applied to the time flown/steamed for
counterdrug activities. Using the methodology we developed, we
calculated that about $150 million of the procurement costs for the
four systems could be allocated to counterdrug activities for fiscal
years 1994-97.\8 As shown in table 3, most of these costs were for
the Perry class frigate due to the number of days steamed in support
of counterdrug activities.
Table 3
Pro Rata Share of Procurement Costs for
Most Used Weapon Systems
(Dollars in millions)
Fiscal year
------------------------------
System 1994 1995 1996 1997 Total
------------------------------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ======
E-3 $3.1 $1.2 $1.6 $1.5 $7.4
UH-60 1.8 2.1 3.2 5.4 12.5
P-3 3.2 4.4 5.4 4.4 17.4
FFG (Perry Class Frigate) 37.7 33.8 23.2 19.0 113.7
======================================================================
Total $45.8 $41.5 $33.4 $30.3 $151.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Developed by GAO using DOD and service data.
The $151 million does not include the cost of research and
development and modifications. Service officials advised us that