Hagel reorganizes effort to find U.S. troops missing in combat

[January 10, 2015]  By David Alexander
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seeking to inject vigor into the search for U.S. troops missing from foreign wars, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday unveiled a new consolidated agency responsible for the effort and named its temporary leadership.

Hagel ordered the reorganization earlier last year as the U.S. Congress pressured the Defense Department to boost its accounting for some 83,000 missing troops - about 73,000 from World War Two and 10,000 from other conflicts, mainly Korea.

"Finding, recovering and identifying the remains of these individuals is one of our highest responsibilities, and I believe that DoD (Defense Department) could more effectively and transparently account for our missing personnel," he said in a statement.

Each year, the Pentagon spends about $100 million trying to account for missing personnel and identifies the remains of about 70 people. It is under congressional mandate to boost capacity to locating and identifying the remains of 200 troops annually by the end of the 2015 fiscal year on Sept. 30.

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office two years ago said the effort to recover and identify missing personnel was "undermined by longstanding leadership weaknesses and a fragmented organizational structure."

To address the deficiencies, Hagel said he had decided to consolidate the various organizations responsible for missing personnel into a single, streamlined, accountable, responsive and transparent organization.

He said the new agency will be directed on an interim basis by Navy Rear Admiral Mike Franken, with the search for a permanent director to start immediately.

Air Force Major General Kelly McKeague, commander of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, will be the agency's interim deputy director, Hagel said.

Of the total number of missing American military personnel, some 25,000 are considered recoverable while about 43,000 are thought to be unrecoverable without additional information or the discovery of new technologies.

(editing by Gunna Dickson)

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