Here's the GOA report, for anyone interested in
actually reading it.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS - Actions Needed to Improve Department-Wide Management of Conventional Ammunition Inventory
False statement:
USA Today said:
The Pentagon plans to destroy more than $1 billion worth of ammunition although some of those bullets and missiles could still be used by troops, according to the Pentagon and congressional sources.
Here's where that $1 billion dollar figure came from:
The purpose of the conference is to identify ammunition that is excess to one service’s needs (i.e., stock identified for potential reutilization or disposal) and can be transferred to another service that has identified a requirement for that same item. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency screens any inventory that is not redistributed at this annual meeting for suitability for foreign military sales. According to a 2010 Army Audit Agency report, the Army had significantly underestimated the funding requirements needed to perform its conventional ammunition demilitarization mission and, as a result, the stockpile has grown to over 557,000 tons, representing a $1 billion liability.
Translation -
The Army, Air Force, Navy & Marines (i.e. "the Services") have an annual meeting to see who has extra munitions. Extra meaning, once my:
- training and reserves requirement;
- my war time/contingency requirement;
- my "economical needs requirement" (i.e. I don't need it now, but the cost of properly disposing of it added to the cost of contracting to get it when I know I'll need some again 7 years from now costs more than just finding/building a safe place to store it);
are all met, you sailor boys can have my army dog-owned stuff.
If no one else needs it, its gets considered for sale to foreign, friendly govt's (why DSCA attends).
The stuff not suitable for foreign govt's - usually because its obsolete - gets de-milled and sold as scrap.
Due to a wide variety of factors (described in the report), the Army didn't fund its de-mil program adequately and has a 557,000 ton backlog of stuff to destroy. And
the cost they now estimate it'll take to destroy it all is $1 billion. It's not $1 billion worth of useable stuff.
And it's not a big pile small arms ammo DoD just bought 4 years ago. Some of it could be land mines (which for political reasons we not only refuse to use, we won't even offer for sale); missiles for old weapons systems; components for navy guns that no one uses anymore; etc.
Here's what DoD did manage to "recycle among itself" in FY12:
DOD guidance indicates that this redistribution process should serve to offset individual procurements by the services and enable disposal of only those assets that are excess to all DOD requirements. For example, the Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition reported that DOD avoids an average of $70 million annually in procurement costs by using the redistribution process regarding each service’s excess inventory. During the fiscal year 2012 redistribution process, DOD transferred approximately 44 million items, of which approximately 32 million were small-caliber items such as ammunition for machine guns or pistols, 11 million were demolition materials such as detonation cords, fuses and pyrotechnic initiators, 1 million were ground defense items such as grenades used for riot control, and the remaining 2 million were a mixture of other various types of ammunition.
One problem the GAO identified was the Army not showing its hand at these joint Services meetings when it comes to missiles. The Air Force, Navy & Marines were reporting their missile inventories to each other, while the Army wasn't reporting its inventory at all. When the Army had excess it held onto it and wouldn't share, so the other services had to go procure some.
So unless you have a use for Stinger, Javelin, and Hellfire missiles, beyond the standard taxpayer outrage, none of this waste of taxpayer dollars is affecting your ammo stockpile.
An additional area of waste centered around the eight Army Depots that have the ability (and designated mission) to stockpile joint munitions. The Army bought a new computer-based enterprise resource planning system to better manage munitions.
Unfortunately it suffered from bad data in-bad data out syndrome. Additionally, the storage space at the eight depots is not being calculated properly, so munitions will arrive for storage and there's no room for it. So it either gets shipped to another depot that has enough of the proper storage space, or the local depot spends time trying to make room.
Again, it's a waste of taxpayer money, but it's not the reason why you can't find ammo on the shelf at Wal-Mart. It's your "garden-variety Pentagon kind of waste," if you will.
Anyway, all that stuff was in the GAO report. Unclassified. All a reporter has to do is read it. Hard work, I know.
I've got nothing kind to say about Senator Carper, so I'll bite my tongue there.
(And doesn't know the difference between an asset and a liability. 
)