Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Thursday that the Pentagon is cutting $5.1 billion in Department of Defense contracts as part of the next wave of “wasteful spending” identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced that Hegseth had signed a memorandum directing the “termination” of $5.1 billion in “wasteful Defense Department contracts.”
“That’s with a ‘B’—$5.1 billion in DOD contracts for ancillary things like consulting and other nonessential services,” Hegseth said in a video message on Thursday.
Hegseth explained that the Pentagon’s new cuts include $1.8 billion in consulting contracts previously awarded by the Defense Health Agency to Accenture, Booz Allen, Deloitte, and other private firms. The cuts also include a $1.4 billion contract for cloud information technology services that was awarded to a software reseller and a $500 million U.S. Navy contract for business process consulting.
“We need this money to spend on better health care for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant,” Hegseth said. “That’s a lot of consulting.”
READ MORE: Video: Pentagon cuts $580 million in ‘wasteful spending’
In the video message, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon is terminating a $500 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract for “IT help desk services that are completely duplicative services” provided by the Department of Defense’s Defense Information Systems Agency.
Additionally, Hegseth said the Department of Defense found 11 more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts, including the Pentagon’s COVID-19 response, climate change initiatives, and “nonessential activities,” that will be terminated.
“We are committed to rooting out DEI — root and branch — throughout this department,” Hegseth said. “And we found 11 more contracts, and we’re going to keep looking.”
Later in Thursday’s video, Hegseth added, “So if you’re keeping score at home, today’s cuts bring our running total to nearly $6 billion in wasteful spending over the first six weeks of the DOD-DOGE effort here at the Defense Department.”
Hegseth emphasized that DOGE’s “job” at the Department of Defense is to identify the “stuff” that the Pentagon can eliminate to better use the American taxpayers’ money for “war-fighting capabilities.”
The defense secretary concluded his video, saying, “We’re excited to make these cuts on behalf of you, the taxpayer, and the warfighters here at the department.”
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