thedrifter
09-30-06, 07:10 AM
September 29, 2006
Flaws seen in DoD casualty assistance process
By Gordon Lubold
Staff writer
The Defense Department has had to provide assistance to thousands of service members who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001, and yet officials still don’t know how to do it right, according to a new report.
The Government Accountability Office issued the report Sept. 22, saying the Pentagon has yet to get its hands around the casualty assistance process. That process is the most critical element to a family that has lost a service member, including help in making funeral arrangements, applying for federal benefits and in some cases, the notification process itself.
Since 2001, scores of incidents have taken place in which family members have indicated they couldn’t get the right information, couldn’t get it in a timely fashion, or were simply given wrong information, the GAO said. The most famous case involves the case of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player who enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11. Tillman was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004, but it took almost a year for the family and the public to discover that his death was the result of friendly fire by members of his own unit.
Other cases are less publicized but no less painful for the families who have had to endure problems.
Lack of oversight is the key problem, the GAO found.
“DoD does not have a comprehensive oversight framework and standards that could improve its ability to monitor the casualty assistance it provides to survivors of service members who die while on active duty,” the report said.
The GAO looked not only at casualty assistance for those killed in combat but all casualty assistance. Between October 2001 and September 2005, nearly 6,000 service members died, the report said. Those deaths prompt processes by the Defense Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, among others.
The government agency, a watchdog group for Congress, recommended that the Defense Department develop a way to oversee casualty notification across the services and create a uniform standard by which the notification process is done.
“GAO found that while each service gathers information about its casualty assistance program and DoD and the services meet three times a year to share information, program performance comparisons across services are hampered by the lack of common metrics and assessment metrics,” the report said.
The GAO also criticized the department for not managing the costs of casualty notification well. Although the study’s authors were not necessarily interested in the cost of the program, the authors indicated that the fact the Pentagon doesn’t know how much the program costs is symptomatic of the larger problem of poor oversight and management.
Defense Department did not offer a reply to the report at the time of its release.
Ellie
Flaws seen in DoD casualty assistance process
By Gordon Lubold
Staff writer
The Defense Department has had to provide assistance to thousands of service members who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001, and yet officials still don’t know how to do it right, according to a new report.
The Government Accountability Office issued the report Sept. 22, saying the Pentagon has yet to get its hands around the casualty assistance process. That process is the most critical element to a family that has lost a service member, including help in making funeral arrangements, applying for federal benefits and in some cases, the notification process itself.
Since 2001, scores of incidents have taken place in which family members have indicated they couldn’t get the right information, couldn’t get it in a timely fashion, or were simply given wrong information, the GAO said. The most famous case involves the case of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player who enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11. Tillman was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004, but it took almost a year for the family and the public to discover that his death was the result of friendly fire by members of his own unit.
Other cases are less publicized but no less painful for the families who have had to endure problems.
Lack of oversight is the key problem, the GAO found.
“DoD does not have a comprehensive oversight framework and standards that could improve its ability to monitor the casualty assistance it provides to survivors of service members who die while on active duty,” the report said.
The GAO looked not only at casualty assistance for those killed in combat but all casualty assistance. Between October 2001 and September 2005, nearly 6,000 service members died, the report said. Those deaths prompt processes by the Defense Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, among others.
The government agency, a watchdog group for Congress, recommended that the Defense Department develop a way to oversee casualty notification across the services and create a uniform standard by which the notification process is done.
“GAO found that while each service gathers information about its casualty assistance program and DoD and the services meet three times a year to share information, program performance comparisons across services are hampered by the lack of common metrics and assessment metrics,” the report said.
The GAO also criticized the department for not managing the costs of casualty notification well. Although the study’s authors were not necessarily interested in the cost of the program, the authors indicated that the fact the Pentagon doesn’t know how much the program costs is symptomatic of the larger problem of poor oversight and management.
Defense Department did not offer a reply to the report at the time of its release.
Ellie