Faced with continued criticism from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Congress, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) is attempting to addresses concerns over its internal control standards.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz continued his effort to promote an image of greater transparency for JIEDDO at an Aug. 6 Pentagon briefing. "Congress [should] know what we're doing," Metz said. JIEDDO should be "open with how our process works."

Congress, however, may be skeptical of the message. House and Senate defense authorizers in 2007 noted several concerns about JIEDDO, and businessmen at Washington-area conferences have voiced frustration in learning about -- and reaching officials at -- the organization for years.

Also troubling are reports of organizational strife, noted in a March 2007 Joint Forces Staff College paper titled, in part, "Tactical Successes Mired in Organizational Chaos." And a year later, GAO concluded that JIEDDO does not have good internal controls, including insight into personnel and spending.

Metz said, "We've continued to improve our resource management section and accountability. I'm confident those critiques were not uncommon in an organization that was formed out of a dozen" Army personnel and then grew to more than a thousand. "I'm confident we're on a path to solve those issues," he said.

The House defense subcommittee recently directed JIEDDO to submit a report by March 15, 2009 "that describes in detail unfunded counter-IED requirements and needs, including any plans to address the unfunded requirements and needs in future budgets."

With $10 billion already provided to the organization, Congress wants a full reporting on unfunded countermeasures.

The organization has requested $496 million for FY '09. Metz said he believes that JIEDDO spending will level off and "we'll have a proportion of how much force is deployed." A larger force in the coming years would translate into more demands from combatant commanders for JIEDDO's services, according to Metz. A smaller force means "we won't have urgent needs and that [number] will go down. We're not on a steep growth pattern," he added.

Another reason for a decrease in spending in the next few years, Metz said, is that JIEDDO has transferred its electronic jamming business back to the services. "We spent lots of money in the first couple of years fielding [jammers]," he said. "It was very expensive."