WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- At least half of a panel that will review the U.S. Defense Department's four-year plan have financial ties to defense contractors, an analysis indicates.
Eleven of the panelists work as employees, consultants or board directors for defense contractors that have a stake in the planning process, a USA Today analysis published Monday said.
Congress created the 20-member panel in 2006 to analyze the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review to provide what lawmakers said would be an independent alternate view of the Pentagon's plan that maps out military policy and spending on weapons and other needs.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who appointed 12 of the unpaid panelists, "takes very seriously" the ethical issues facing participants with links to defense firms, said Paul Hughes of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Quadrennial Defense Review committee's executive director. Last fall, Gates ordered his appointees be governed by federal ethics rules and disclose their assets and sources of income, Hughes said.
At first the eight congressional appointees weren't subject to the more stringent ethics rules and disclosures, but after the USA Today analysis and inquiries, officials from the Pentagon and Congress decided all members would be regulated by the same ethics standards, Hughes said. Panelists agreed to recuse themselves from considering any recommendation that could affect a company with which they're affiliated.
"The Pentagon often talks about its cooperation with industry, but this makes you wonder who's wearing the pants in this relationship," said Mandy Smithberger, national security investigator for the Project on Government Oversight.
