Top military brass to hear review of 'mentors' program (ret. military officer as paid consultants)

[maddezmom]

Source: USA Today

Top military brass to hear review of 'mentors' program

By Tom Vanden Brook and Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates' top deputy will brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff today on his recommendations to regulate the Pentagon's practice of hiring retired senior officers to advise the military, Gates' spokesman said.
Gates ordered Deputy Secretary William Lynn in December to review the military's practice of paying retired officers hundreds of dollars an hour to act as "senior mentors," helping run war games and advising active-duty officers.

Lynn has completed the review and will present his recommendations to Gates, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the chiefs of the military services, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Gates was responding to a USA TODAY investigation, which reported that most of the mentors had ties to defense contractors and that there were few ethics rules governing potential conflicts of interest. The newspaper reported that some mentors were earning more as advisers than they did as active-duty generals, even as they collected six-figure pensions and consulted with defense companies seeking Pentagon contracts.

In the months leading up to the review, Gates has expressed concern about mentors' pay, which can reach $486 an hour. Mullen said in November that mentors must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat whose subcommittee is investigating military mentors, told Gates in November that there must be public disclosure of mentors' outside interests.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-03-23-military-mentors_N.htm

[babylonsister]

1. Oh, yea. I want to know all about those conflicts of interest. That

should have been standard operating procedure.

[Big_Mike]

4. I have personally observed some of these mentors

training Colonels (Brigade Commanders) at the National Training Center. They provide a resource that is available nowhere else in the world. There is not another military that operates at the level of ours, and these mentors provide training that makes these commanders much more capable. That in turn saves the lives of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen serving under them.

$426 an hour? When there are countless lawyers and executives making much more than that? This is most definitely cost effective.

[No Elephants]

2. Seems to be no end to the ways taxpayers get robbed blind.

I wonder how the Teabaggers are going to reconcile this with their idolatry of all things military and paramilitary.

[OnyxCollie]

3. K&R. nt