Operation Desert Storm

This fact sheet provides information on the military services' residual or excess secondary inventory items resulting from Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Such items include aircraft and ship parts, medical and construction supplies, and clothing. GAO answers the following questions: How did the Pentagon arrive at $3.1 billion as the value of residual inventory resulting from Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm? What does each service estimate the value of its residual inventory to be? What is the status of the Pentagon's proposed funding adjustments affecting this inventory?

GAO found that: (1) the estimated value of the services' residual inventories totalled $3.4 billion; (2) in determining the value of the residual inventories, the Department of Defense estimated the value of materiel in transit, redistributed to build up incremental inventories, and expected to be returned to the wholesale level; (3) the services could not determine the extent or value of returned inventory because the equipment was not tracked and was redistributed within the services after return; and (4) the Office of the Secretary of Defense reduced the services' fiscal years 1993 to 1995 operation and maintenance budgets by $3.1 billion, basing the revised funding levels on the services' residual inventories and Operation Desert Storm purchases.