DOD's POW/MIA Mission: Capability and Capacity to Account for Missing Persons Undermined by Leadership Weaknesses and Fragmented Organizational Structure

Abstract

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to discuss GAO's findings and recommendations about the Department of Defense's (DoD) missing persons accounting mission from our recently issued report, "DOD's POW/MIA Mission: Top-Level Leadership Attention Needed to Resolve Longstanding Challenges in Accounting for Missing Persons from Past Conflicts." DoD reports that more than 83,000 persons are missing from past conflicts in Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War, the Persian Gulf, and World War II. Since the early 1970s, DoD has identified the remains of and accounted for approximately 1,910 persons. Several DoD components and organizations, collectively known as the missing persons accounting community, have a role in accounting for missing persons. Between 2002 and 2012, DoD accounted for an average of 72 persons each year. In 2009, Congress established an accounting-for goal in Section 541 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. This act required the Secretary of Defense to provide such funds, personnel, and resources as the Secretary considers appropriate to increase significantly the capability and capacity of DoD, the Armed Forces, and commanders of the combatant commands to account for missing persons, so that the accounting community has sufficient resources to ensure that at least 200 missing persons are accounted for annually, beginning in fiscal year 2015. The law also added all World War II losses to the list of conflicts for which DoD is responsible, thus increasing from about 10,000 to 83,000 the number of missing persons for whom DoD must account. In my statement today, I will focus on three key issues we identified in our report, specifically: (1) the accounting community's organizational structure, (2) the lack of clarity regarding community members' roles and responsibilities, and (3) DoD's planning to meet the statutory accounting-for goal.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA581768

Entities

People

  • Allen Westheimer
  • Brenda S. Farrell
  • Cheryl Weissman
  • Leigh Ann Sennette
  • Margaret Best
  • Michael Willems
  • Renee Brown
  • Terry Richardson

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Biological Sciences
  • Congress
  • Electronic Mail
  • Families (Human)
  • Governments
  • House Of Representatives
  • Leadership
  • Military Personnel
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Prisoners Of War
  • Second World War
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • United States Government
  • United States Pacific Command

Readers

  • Criminal Law
  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Defense Financial Management and Audit.