William J. Lynn III
Encyclopedia
William J. Lynn III is a former United States
Deputy Secretary of Defense
. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
and a lobbyist for Raytheon
.
in 1976, and later studied at Cornell Law School
to receive his law degree in 1980 and graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School
at Princeton University
in 1982 with an M.A. in public affairs. After this he was employed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
, where he was the executive director of the Defense Organization Project from 1982 to 1985. That last year he published the book Toward a More Effective Defense. At some point in time he was a senior fellow studying strategic nuclear forces and arms control at the National Defense University
's Strategic Concepts Development Center, and went on to be the legislative counsel for defense and arms control matters for Massachusetts
Senator
Edward Kennedy
between 1987 and 1993. During this time he also worked as Kennedy's staff representative on the Committee on Armed Services
.
Lynn later worked as an assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Budget, and in April 1993 joined the office of the Secretary of Defense
(then Les Aspin
) to be director for program analysis and evaluation. On October 21, 1997, President Bill Clinton
nominated Lynn to be Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
, and after a Senate confirmation on November 13, he was officially sworn in on November 19.
After leaving at the end of the Clinton Presidency, Lynn became the executive vice president of the management consulting firm DFI International in 2001, but left in August 2002 when he was hired by the Raytheon Company, where he held the title senior vice president of Government Operations and Strategy.
Barack Obama
nominated Lynn as his Deputy Secretary of Defense
. This was complicated by the fact that new ethic rules promulgated by Obama for members of his administration create a waiting period of two years between lobbying activities and working for the administration on the same issues, which Lynn's work with Raytheon violated. President Obama waived the new rules for Lynn, which received criticism from John McCain
as well as outside groups such as the Project on Government Oversight
, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
, Government Accountability Project
, and Public Citizen
. McCain later said that the nomination should probably move forward. As nominee, Lynn agreed to sell his holdings of Raytheon stock. Lynn's appointment was approved by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on February 5, 2009 by unanimous consent. On February 11, 2009, Lynn was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 93–4. He took the oath of office on February 12.
Lynn cautioned in May 2009 that Congress and the Obama administration should be careful not to make things worse in overhauling the Pentagon’s weapons-buying practices. “We need to keep in mind the importance of not making the system worse in our efforts to achieve reform,” Lynn said in testimony prepared for the House Armed Services Committee. “This has happened in the past.” Lynn told lawmakers the Pentagon will hire 20,000 new personnel to manage weapons acquisition as part of sweeping reforms that President Obama and Congress have been pushing for. The proposal to hire 20,000 new employees is “aggressive,” Lynn said, but the Pentagon needs program managers, cost estimators, software engineers and systems engineers. He said Pentagon leadership will start bringing the new people in at the beginning of fiscal 2010. “We are mindful it is going to be an organizational challenge,” he said.
The Pentagon leadership has started a sweeping effort to free up about $100 billion over the next five years to maintain current fighting forces and to modernize weapons systems. Lynn in June 2010 said the goal is to find more savings within the defense budget without cutting the top-line number. Pentagon leaders are eying 2 to 3 percent real growth in the Pentagon’s budget for the areas that need it most: force structure and modernization. Two-thirds of the $100 billion cost savings spread out over the next five years will come from trimming overhead on a department-wide basis. That money will be directly transferred into the force structure and modernization accounts, Lynn explained. The rest of the cost savings would come from “developing efficiencies within those force structure and modernization accounts,” he added. “If we're able to reduce overhead accounts where we don't need those increases, shift it to the force structure and modernization accounts, we can get that 2 to 3 percent [real growth] and we can do what we think we need to do in technology refresh, modernization, protecting quality of life and all those critical factors.”
Lynn warned that in order to get to the $100 billion in savings the Pentagon leadership and the military services will have to identify “lower priority programs” that are not going to be part of future budgets.
On January 6th, 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
outlined the $100 bn worth of savings planned over the next 5 fiscal years (FY2012-FY2016) designed to be reinvested in military capabilities, plus additional 5 year savings worth $78 bn designed to contribute to deficit reduction. These include, among other things, the consolidation of numbered air force staff, the disestablishment of JFCOM and the Second Fleet, Air Mobility Command fuel savings, multi-year procurement policies, and cancellations of hundreds of report requirements (many of them dating back to the 1950s).
In May 2011 Lynn indicated that the department is moving to balance how much it invests in counterinsurgency versus more traditional military capabilities. "I think you can decide which of those two you want to emphasize," said William Lynn. "I don't think you can eliminate either. I don't think that's possible." Lynn said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been more difficult than had been expected, but the U.S. military must have enough troops and the right kind of training, equipment and family support for future long conflicts, which he said are still "plausible."
In July Lynn announced that he would leave DoD. "Bill Lynn has provided outstanding advice and counsel to this department and to the nation over the course of his long career," Leon Panetta
said in a statement released on 7 July. "I will rely on his experience and expertise during this transition period. His service will be greatly missed." He left his office on October 5, 2011.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Deputy Secretary of Defense
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
The Deputy Secretary of Defense is the second-highest ranking official in the Department of Defense of the United States of America. The Deputy Secretary of Defense is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate...
. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
The Under Secretary of Defense is the Chief Financial Officer of the United States Department of Defense. The responsibilities of the Department of Defense's Chief Financial Officer include developing and implementing Department of Defense-wide financial policy, financial management systems, and...
and a lobbyist for Raytheon
Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
.
Biography
Lynn graduated from Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1976, and later studied at Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School, located in Ithaca, New York, is a graduate school of Cornell University and one of the five Ivy League law schools. The school confers three law degrees...
to receive his law degree in 1980 and graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school has granted undergraduate A.B. degrees since 1930 and graduate degrees since 1948...
at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1982 with an M.A. in public affairs. After this he was employed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
, where he was the executive director of the Defense Organization Project from 1982 to 1985. That last year he published the book Toward a More Effective Defense. At some point in time he was a senior fellow studying strategic nuclear forces and arms control at the National Defense University
National Defense University
The National Defense University is an institution of higher education funded by the United States Department of Defense, intended to facilitate high-level training, education, and the development of national security strategy. It is chartered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Navy Vice Admiral...
's Strategic Concepts Development Center, and went on to be the legislative counsel for defense and arms control matters for Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Edward Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
between 1987 and 1993. During this time he also worked as Kennedy's staff representative on the Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
The Committee on Armed Services is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defense, military research and development, nuclear energy , benefits for members of the military, the Selective Service System and...
.
Lynn later worked as an assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Budget, and in April 1993 joined the office of the Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
(then Les Aspin
Les Aspin
Leslie "Les" Aspin, Jr. was a United States Representative from 1971 to 1993, and the United States Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton from January 21, 1993 to February 3, 1994.-Early life:...
) to be director for program analysis and evaluation. On October 21, 1997, President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
nominated Lynn to be Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
The Under Secretary of Defense is the Chief Financial Officer of the United States Department of Defense. The responsibilities of the Department of Defense's Chief Financial Officer include developing and implementing Department of Defense-wide financial policy, financial management systems, and...
, and after a Senate confirmation on November 13, he was officially sworn in on November 19.
After leaving at the end of the Clinton Presidency, Lynn became the executive vice president of the management consulting firm DFI International in 2001, but left in August 2002 when he was hired by the Raytheon Company, where he held the title senior vice president of Government Operations and Strategy.
Deputy Secretary of Defense
On January 8, 2009, President-electPresident-elect of the United States
President-elect of the United States is the title used for an incoming President of the United States in the period between the general election on Election Day in November and noon eastern standard time on Inauguration Day, January 20, during which he is not in office yet...
Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
nominated Lynn as his Deputy Secretary of Defense
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
The Deputy Secretary of Defense is the second-highest ranking official in the Department of Defense of the United States of America. The Deputy Secretary of Defense is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate...
. This was complicated by the fact that new ethic rules promulgated by Obama for members of his administration create a waiting period of two years between lobbying activities and working for the administration on the same issues, which Lynn's work with Raytheon violated. President Obama waived the new rules for Lynn, which received criticism from John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
as well as outside groups such as the Project on Government Oversight
Project on Government Oversight
The Project On Government Oversight , founded in 1981, is an independent non-profit organization in the United States which investigates and seeks to expose corruption and other misconduct. POGO assists whistleblowers and investigates federal agencies, Congress, and government contractors...
, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a nonprofit 501 organization that describes itself as "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials – regardless of party affiliation – who sacrifice the common good to...
, Government Accountability Project
Government Accountability Project
The Government Accountability Project is a leading United States whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating of whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability...
, and Public Citizen
Public Citizen
Public Citizen is a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a branch in Austin, Texas. Public Citizen was founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, headed for 26 years by Joan Claybrook, and is now headed by Robert Weissman.-Lobbying Efforts:Public Citizen...
. McCain later said that the nomination should probably move forward. As nominee, Lynn agreed to sell his holdings of Raytheon stock. Lynn's appointment was approved by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on February 5, 2009 by unanimous consent. On February 11, 2009, Lynn was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 93–4. He took the oath of office on February 12.
Lynn cautioned in May 2009 that Congress and the Obama administration should be careful not to make things worse in overhauling the Pentagon’s weapons-buying practices. “We need to keep in mind the importance of not making the system worse in our efforts to achieve reform,” Lynn said in testimony prepared for the House Armed Services Committee. “This has happened in the past.” Lynn told lawmakers the Pentagon will hire 20,000 new personnel to manage weapons acquisition as part of sweeping reforms that President Obama and Congress have been pushing for. The proposal to hire 20,000 new employees is “aggressive,” Lynn said, but the Pentagon needs program managers, cost estimators, software engineers and systems engineers. He said Pentagon leadership will start bringing the new people in at the beginning of fiscal 2010. “We are mindful it is going to be an organizational challenge,” he said.
The Pentagon leadership has started a sweeping effort to free up about $100 billion over the next five years to maintain current fighting forces and to modernize weapons systems. Lynn in June 2010 said the goal is to find more savings within the defense budget without cutting the top-line number. Pentagon leaders are eying 2 to 3 percent real growth in the Pentagon’s budget for the areas that need it most: force structure and modernization. Two-thirds of the $100 billion cost savings spread out over the next five years will come from trimming overhead on a department-wide basis. That money will be directly transferred into the force structure and modernization accounts, Lynn explained. The rest of the cost savings would come from “developing efficiencies within those force structure and modernization accounts,” he added. “If we're able to reduce overhead accounts where we don't need those increases, shift it to the force structure and modernization accounts, we can get that 2 to 3 percent [real growth] and we can do what we think we need to do in technology refresh, modernization, protecting quality of life and all those critical factors.”
Lynn warned that in order to get to the $100 billion in savings the Pentagon leadership and the military services will have to identify “lower priority programs” that are not going to be part of future budgets.
On January 6th, 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Robert Gates
Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W....
outlined the $100 bn worth of savings planned over the next 5 fiscal years (FY2012-FY2016) designed to be reinvested in military capabilities, plus additional 5 year savings worth $78 bn designed to contribute to deficit reduction. These include, among other things, the consolidation of numbered air force staff, the disestablishment of JFCOM and the Second Fleet, Air Mobility Command fuel savings, multi-year procurement policies, and cancellations of hundreds of report requirements (many of them dating back to the 1950s).
In May 2011 Lynn indicated that the department is moving to balance how much it invests in counterinsurgency versus more traditional military capabilities. "I think you can decide which of those two you want to emphasize," said William Lynn. "I don't think you can eliminate either. I don't think that's possible." Lynn said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been more difficult than had been expected, but the U.S. military must have enough troops and the right kind of training, equipment and family support for future long conflicts, which he said are still "plausible."
In July Lynn announced that he would leave DoD. "Bill Lynn has provided outstanding advice and counsel to this department and to the nation over the course of his long career," Leon Panetta
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is the 23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama since 2011. Prior to taking office, he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...
said in a statement released on 7 July. "I will rely on his experience and expertise during this transition period. His service will be greatly missed." He left his office on October 5, 2011.