Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said cuts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made to the Pentagon’s independent weapons testing office may leave troops using unsafe or ineffective equipment, renewing a push with Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., to reverse the cuts. Warren’s post on X linked to Bloomberg reporting on the dispute.
Warren: “We Shouldn’t Unnecessarily Risk Troops’ Lives”
“Our troops could be using UNSAFE or INEFFECTIVE weapons because of Pete Hegseth,” Warren wrote. “That’s right. Hegseth gutted the office that tests weapons. @Donaldnorcross & I are pressing Hegseth to reverse these cuts. We shouldn’t unnecessarily risk troops’ lives & our national security.”
Hegseth Ordered Deep Cuts to Testing Office in May 2025
Hegseth directed the cuts in a May 27, 2025, memorandum ordering the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation reduced from 126 authorized civilian positions to 30, eliminating all but one senior executive position and ending contractor support within seven days. Hegseth’s memo projected $300 million in annual savings and said the changes would “improve the lethality, readiness, and efficiency of our Armed Forces.”
Pentagon Says Cuts Return Office to Its Original Statutory Purpose
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell defended the reorganization at the time, saying it “eliminates redundancy in the defense acquisition system, returns DOT&E to its statutory intent as an oversight body, and empowers the Services and Combatant Commands with greater trust to ensure the warfighter is efficiently equipped to address emerging challenges.” Hegseth’s memo separately said an internal study had identified “redundant, non-essential, non-statutory functions” within the office that did not support “operational agility or resource efficiency.” Parnell reiterated the department’s position when CNN asked about later criticism from Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, who called the cuts “reckless and damaging” and suggested the move “appears retaliatory.”
DOT&E Has Provided Independent Weapons Oversight for More Than 40 Years
The office, created by Congress in 1983 after lawmakers found the military services were not adequately testing weapons and Congress wasn’t getting the information needed for oversight, is responsible for determining whether major weapons systems are safe and effective before they reach troops in the field.
GAO Found Cuts Have Already Impaired Oversight Capacity
A Government Accountability Office report released June 30, mandated by a provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report accompanying the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, found that “the staff reductions since May 2025 constrain the depth and breadth of oversight that DOT&E can provide for DOD’s weapon systems.” The office’s oversight list fell from 265 programs in fiscal 2024 to 173 in fiscal 2025, and GAO found remaining staff were absorbing more work than they could handle, including overseeing programs outside their areas of technical expertise.
Officers Warned Programs Could Avoid Required Safety Testing
GAO reported that DOT&E’s own “action officers” — the staff responsible for individual program assessments — told investigators the military services could use streamlined acquisition pathways to sidestep legally required operational and live-fire testing. As of February 2026, DOT&E’s oversight list included just 15 of roughly 110 active programs using the Pentagon’s “middle tier of acquisition” fast-track process, despite Congress appropriating $10.6 million specifically to expand oversight of those programs.
Warren and Norcross First Raised Concerns in June 2025
Warren, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, first wrote to Hegseth in June 2025, warning the cuts “will cost service members’ lives and waste taxpayer dollars” and could violate the law by leaving the office unable to meet its statutory functions. She said Hegseth had not publicly released any study justifying the reductions.
Pentagon Later Quietly Removed Nearly 100 More Programs From Oversight
In October 2025, Warren and Norcross wrote again after the Pentagon removed 94 additional programs from DOT&E’s oversight list — a 37% reduction covering at least $74.5 billion in weapons systems — while backdating the revised list to late July. The lawmakers said the Pentagon had responded to an earlier records request with an oversight list that was already out of date within two days of sending it.
Latest Letter Followed Removal of Decades of Public Test Reports
The Aug. 12 letter that prompted Warren’s post also raised concerns about DOT&E’s removal of all of its unclassified annual reports from its public website. During her confirmation hearing, DOT&E director Dr. Amy Henninger had promised Warren “maximum” transparency; Warren and Norcross wrote that removing the reports “appears to be an attempt to avoid disclosure of information the public needs to evaluate if major, high-dollar weapon systems are effective and safe.”
Lawmakers Say Reorganization “Created Significant and Unnecessary Risk”
“The decision to purge the office of DOT&E has created significant and unnecessary risk that jeopardizes readiness, service member safety, acquisition reform, and taxpayer dollars,” Warren and Norcross wrote in their Aug. 12 letter, urging Hegseth “to reverse the cuts made to this office to restore trust that DoD weapon systems are effective for combat use and safe for our warfighters.”
Pentagon Has Not Provided Study Justifying the Cuts
Throughout the roughly 14-month dispute, the Pentagon has told Warren’s office the cuts were based on a “comprehensive internal review,” but has not provided the underlying study or analysis to lawmakers, according to Warren’s office. The Pentagon did not respond to questions from several news outlets, including Breaking Defense and Federal News Network, about the GAO’s findings.
DOT&E Has Said It Is Reviewing Its Own Workforce and Workload
As of June 2026, according to the GAO report, DOT&E itself was conducting an internal analysis of its workforce and workload in response to congressional inquiries, though the office had not yet indicated whether the reorganization would be revised.
Staffing Has Partially Recovered but Remains Below Prior Levels
The reorganization unfolded in stages, with DOT&E issuing six separate reduction-in-force notices between June and October 2025 before a government-wide continuing resolution paused further cuts that November. Staffing had partially recovered to 45 positions by September 2025, according to Defense News, though that remains well below the office’s roughly 94-person staffing level — 82 civilians and 12 military personnel — before the reorganization began.
Hegseth Has Framed the Cuts as Part of a Broader Acquisition Overhaul
The DOT&E changes preceded a broader Pentagon reorganization Hegseth announced in November 2025, replacing program executive officers with what he called “portfolio acquisition executives” under a system he named the Warfighting Acquisition System. “We mean to increase acquisition risk in order to decrease operational risk,” Hegseth said in a National War College address outlining the approach, adding that “speed to delivery is now our organizing principle.”