Gen. Jack Keane: Defense Dept. Needs a CEO

As President-elect Donald Trump fills the Cabinet positions for his incoming administration, Fox News Military Analyst Gen. Jack Keane, who reportedly turned down the position of Defense Secretary due to personal issues, weighed in on who should be tasked with leading the Defense Department in order to make America’s military stronger and more efficient.

“The Defense Department by far is the most expensive department that’s in the federal executive branch and clearly we are the best military in the world.  And what’s happened to us is we need to also be so superior that our adversaries do not want to challenge us and that has been eroding, Stuart, and we’ve got to go back and rebuild it and repair it,” Keane told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.

Keane discussed why Trump should look to the business world, of all places, while organizing the leadership at the Defense Department.

“I believe strongly that the number two man in the Defense Department should be a CEO from a Fortune 500 company who has been involved in a turnaround or multiple turnarounds recently of a very large organization.”

Though Keane says America’s military is second to none in battle, he believes it could benefit from someone with the business savvy to improve how it operates as an organization.

“The Defense Department, what it does so well, and the American people have seen this for 70 years, is that when it comes to war fighting we’re the best in the world.  But Stuart, when it comes to business, we’re third rate at best.  And we need somebody in there, the Defense Department is not a business, but there’s so many things we need to do that are business-like and we need that kind of expertise in there to find that money.”

According to Keane someone with financial experience from the private sector could also add a fresh perspective to the federal budget.

“I also think that the Comptroller, who’s usually a federal budget guy who understands the federal budget process,  we need a Chief Financial Officer in there who understands how to contain costs, who understands auditing, internal control measures, financial reviews on a regular basis and that brings also somebody who has vast business-like experience to make the Pentagon work in terms of decision making more rapidly like a business and also to keep costs down and hold people accountable for cost measurement.”