Privatize Military Mail
December 16, 2005
by: Leslie K. Paige

Wastewatcher, 5-Dec

While overall legislative reform of the United States Postal Service (USPS) appears to be a dead letter for this congressional session, the Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking ideas about how to fully privatize its postal delivery service to the men and women in uniform.  The Defense Business Board (DBB), an independent advisory board to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, has recommended that the Pentagon seek proposals to fully privatize the delivery of mail to armed services personnel.  The board was created in 2001 to give independent advice and recommendations to transform the DOD using best business practices.
    
According to the DBB, mail delivery is not a core function of the military.  Private sector companies already provide hot chow and haircuts to military personnel, among other services.  But the Pentagon has struggled with timely mail delivery, even though it is forced to divert thousands of active and reserve personnel to help sort and transport the mail.  The U.S. Marine Corps, for example, trains about 500 of its service members as postal clerks every year, hardly the best use of the few and the proud.  A 2004 Government Accountability Office report found that the Pentagon delivered more than 65 million tons of mail to the Middle East in 2003.  On October 28, 2005,  InsideDefense.com quoted an industry source who said that it costs the Pentagon $340 million per year to transport the mail overseas, not including the expense associated with transportation outside the theater of operations.  Furthermore, 30 percent of the mail never reaches its intended recipient and must be returned to the sender.
    
DBB estimates that if the Pentagon could use private sector mail contractors, it could refocus 4,000 of its personnel back on war-fighting duties and save at least $200 million annually.  Long-term costs savings could conceivably be much higher since the Government Accountability Office has said that the Military Postal Service Agency lacks transparency and is impossible to audit. 
    
The DBB has taken an even bolder step by soliciting proposals not only for discreet functions like transportation and sorting, but for high-tech, end-to-end solutions for world-wide delivery of military mail.  Ultimately, Secretary Rumsfeld’s desire to transform the U.S. military superstructure could be a model demonstration project for a fully privatized postal delivery system for civilians.  After all, if the private sector can deliver a letter from Baton Rouge to Baghdad more efficiently and less expensively than can the military, imagine what it could do for correspondence from Topeka to Omaha.