By Nick Simeone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 31, 2014 – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
announced today that he’s ordered an overhaul of the Pentagon agencies
responsible for recovering and identifying the remains of America’s war dead.
The reorganization seeks consolidate the mission, improve
efficiency and increase the number of remains identified by the two key
agencies charged with POW-MIA accounting efforts -- the Defense Prisoner of War
Missing Personnel Office and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, Hagel told a
Pentagon news conference.
Last month, the defense secretary directed Michael Lumpkin,
acting undersecretary of defense for policy, to provide him with
recommendations on how to reorganize the two organizations into a single,
streamlined unit with oversight for the entire mission.
“These steps will help improve the accounting mission,
increase the number of identifications of our missing, provide greater
transparency for their families and expand our case file system to include all
missing personnel,” Hagel said.
An armed forces medical examiner working for the
yet-to-be-named agency will be the sole DOD identification authority and will
oversee operations of the central identification laboratory in Hawaii as well
as those in Omaha, Neb., and Dayton, Ohio.
“By consolidating functions, we will resolve issues of
duplication and inefficiency and build a stronger, more transparent and more
responsive organization,” Hagel stressed.
In explaining why the reorganization was necessary, Lumpkin
told reporters it had become clear that the department needed a “paradigm
shift” from what some have called “outdated, institutionalized thinking and
behavior that didn’t deliver the number of remains accounted for that we had
hoped.”
“As of next year, Congress has mandated the department have
the capacity to identify up to 200 sets of remains a year, but last year the
DOD agencies only identified 70 sets,” he said.
Lumpkin said the new agency will maintain a single database
of records related to missing Americans instead of the multiple databases currently
in use. In addition, he said, proposals will be developed for expanding
partnerships with private organizations already working to recover and identify
remains to “fully embrace progressive science.”
No date has been set for when the new agency will be stood
up, but the undersecretary said it would be led by a civilian appointed by the
president.
“This is a top priority for the Department of Defense. There
is no greater sacrifice a service member can make than by dying for this
country and we want to honor these heroes by bringing them home,” Lumpkin said.
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