Reading the ASD/NII Tea Leaves

The "removal" of Teresa "Teri" Takai, California's chief information officer, from her planned nomination hearing on Monday to become the assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration and Defense CIO was no accident.

Tara Andringa, press secretary for the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., wrote in an e-mail to me that Defense scotched Takai's appearance pending an overall review of the Pentagon's management structure.

Andringa said the panel received the statement below from Defense on why it removed Takai from yesterday's hearing:

In light of the secretary's initiative to reduce overhead and achieve efficiencies, the department is in the process of reviewing the entire organizational structure. While we are examining any number of options and avenues for the best way forward, we wanted to maintain some flexibility. Therefore, we determined that it was best not to go forward with this confirmation hearing until this internal review was completed.

John Grimes, the most recent ASD/NII who resigned in April 2009, told me that this definitely shows top Pentagon management may follow through with recommendations made last month by the Defense Business Board to eliminate the NII organization -- a move he views as a serious mistake.

Although Defense can eliminate NII, it cannot do away with the CIO job, which is mandated by the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act. But I wonder how long Takai wants to be on hold before Defense makes up its mind on NII.