What would the CIO do in Gates' new DOD?

Guest entry by Michael Hardy, managing editor/daily report.

The August 9 announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates of his detailed plan to reduce the Defense Department budget by $100 billion over the next five years raised more questions than it answered. One of the key questions: What is the proper role of a chief information officer in the leaner, more consolidated information technology infrastructure that Gates envisions?

Gates proposes closing the office of the assistant secretary of defense for network intelligence and integration -- the official who serves as the CIO. Where would the CIO's new home be, organizationally?

Robert Hale, DOD comptroller, said that DOD's IT capabilities and networks are really just one more weapon system. He suggested, at an August 9 news conference, a re-organization that would center on networks.

"If you could move the operational activities under operational control and take the oversight into administrative and policy issues and put them in another organization, that would align us in such a way that what has become the reality in that our networks are really weapons," he said. "We treat them as weapons systems, they go all the way from the tactical edge -- the Aegis or the warfighter in the foxhole -- back to the headquarters."

If the network is a weapon, that implies the leader of the IT organization is really the head of a weapons program, not just a technology strategist.

What is your take on this? What is the proper role for the CIO of the Defense Department? Is it fundamentally different than that of a CIO in any other agency?