U.S. Department of Defence | March 24, 2004

The Department of Defense announced today that Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense Dov S. Zakheim will resign from government on April 15, 2004.

In this position, Zakheim initiated an enterprise architecture to achieve a vision of simpler budget processes, activity-based costing, and a clean audit by 2007. He oversaw three Department of Defense budgets, each totaling more than $300 billion, and recently proposed a 2005 budget of $401.7 billion. He played a leading role in raising in excess of $13 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq, and walked through six wartime supplementals in support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He further created the Defense Business Board and worked closely with the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accounting Office on financial management affairs.

I am proud to have been part of President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld's senior Pentagon team for the past three years, said Zakheim reflecting on his tour. It has been an exhilarating, albeit extremely demanding experience. Even as we have addressed the many concerns arising out of the War on Terror and Operations Enduring Freedom, Noble Eagle and Iraqi Freedom, including winning both military and financial support from the international community for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have also tended to ongoing budget needs to support our forces and defense civilians at home and abroad. We have also made great strides in rectifying the department's antiquated financial management system; we continue to anticipate that DoD will receive clean audits in the not too distant future.

Regarding Zakheims resignation, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, Dov Zakheim has been a cornerstone to the Department of Defense over the past three years. He has been a leader in helping transform the Department to better address the needs of the 21st century. I thank him for his commitment and his counsel. He will be missed.

Zakheim was sworn in to his current position May 4, 2001. Prior to that, his government service included a number of key positions, to include from 1985 until March 1987, as the deputy under secretary of defense for planning and resources in the office of the under secretary of defense (policy). He also held a variety of other Department of Defense posts from 1981-1985 and served with the National Security and International Affairs Division of the Congressional Budget Office.

During other periods of Zakheims career, he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to then-Gov. Bush, during the 2000 presidential campaign. Prior to that, he was the corporate vice president of System Planning Corporation (SPC), a technology, research and analysis firm. He also served as chief executive officer of SPC International Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military and economical consulting.

Zakheim has been a participant on a number of government, corporate, non-profit and charitable boards. His government service includes terms on the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad; the Task Force on Defense Reform (1997); the first Board of Visitors of the Department of Defense Overseas Regional Schools (1998); and the Defense Science Board task force on "The Impact of DoD Acquisition Policies on the Health of the Defense Industry" (2000).

A 1970 graduate of Columbia University with a bachelor's in government, Zakheim also studied at the London School of Economics. He earned his doctorate in economics and politics at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, where he was graduate fellow in programs of both the National Science Foundation and Columbia College, and then a research fellow. Zakheim has been an adjunct professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University, Columbia University and Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., where he was presidential scholar.

Zakheim has written, lectured and provided media commentary on national defense and foreign policy issues domestically and internationally. He is the author of "Flight of the Lavi: Inside a U.S.-Israeli Crisis" (Brassey's, 1996), "Congress and National Security in the Post-Cold War Era" (The Nixon Center, 1998), "Toward a Fortress Europe?" (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2000), and numerous articles and chapters in books.

Recently reflecting on the sacrifices associated with managing the financing of the nation's war effort, Zakheim said, Our people need to be constantly on their guard, constantly at the ready, razor sharp, in difficult conditions; we dont want to make (the mission) one iota more difficult over something thats easily taken care of if something bothers our people in uniform, I dont consider it trivial at all.

I look forward to more time with my family, and to an exciting new phase of my life, said Zakheim, regarding his departure from the Department of Defense, but I shall indeed miss the pleasure of working closely with my colleagues at DoD, and throughout the government, in the Congress, and in many capitals overseas.