AINEWS
Defense Secretary Hegseth cut the testing office's staff by about 74% and its budget by about 80% before the reports went behind a military ID wall, weeks before a $1.5T 2027 budget ask.
The Pentagon has moved its annual weapons-testing reports behind a credentialed portal, requiring a Defense Department-issued common access card to read what had been publicly available for decades (Defense News). The change went live in August.
The office that produces those reports, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, is the independent Pentagon tester that judges whether the military's most expensive bets actually work in the field, from new fighter jets to missile defense systems. It is statutorily required to publish its findings each year. The access change follows a May memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directing the office to cut staff by about 74% and its budget by nearly 80% in the name of cost-savings, and weeks later the Defense Department asked Congress for a $1.5 trillion 2027 budget.
That record ask includes the Golden Dome Missile Defense System, a planned network of space-based interceptors whose real-world performance has not been tested at scale. The testing office was the venue where such bets were supposed to be put under independent scrutiny.
A Defense Department official, speaking to Federal News Network, said the access change is meant to keep foreign adversaries from using AI tools to build detailed profiles of U.S. military vulnerabilities from the public reports. The official was not named, and the rationale surfaced after the office had already been gutted.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Donald Norcross of New Jersey, both Democrats, sent a letter to Hegseth demanding an explanation for the removal. The lawmakers cited the office's statutory publication duty in pressing the Defense Secretary to restore public access, framing the access change as a reversal of a long-standing legal obligation.
Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst with the watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, called the sequence "suspicious" in an interview with Military Times, noting that officials gutted the testing office before proposing a massive spending increase. Murphy cited Golden Dome as a project that warrants more oversight, arguing that space-based interceptors are unlikely to perform well in real tests and that the public has the most to lose when test results are hidden.
The Pentagon has not said when, or whether, the public reports will return. The credentialed portal is operational now, and the Warren-Norcross letter awaits a response from Hegseth.