Chairman Wilson and Ranking Member Davis Joint Statement on Release of POW/MIA GAO Report

House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel Chairman Joe Wilson (SC-02) and Ranking Member Susan Davis (CA-53) released the following joint statement after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its report addressing Prisoner-of-War/Missing-In-Action (POW/MIA) efforts taken by the Department of Defense. Chairman Wilson and Ranking Member Davis have been actively engaged in addressing the uncertainty facing thousands of families over the unaccounted remains of their loved ones who were killed in action or died in captivity while serving our country. After hearing increased and growing concerns from families, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel included a provision in the FY13 National Defense Authorization Act requesting this report.

"In 2009, Congress passed a simple mandate. The Pentagon must implement a comprehensive, coordinated, integrated and fully resourced program 'to account for the nation's prisoners of war and missing persons.' Since then, as the General Accounting Office report so clearly points out, senior Defense Department officials have failed to both execute this directive and to prevent fragmentation of the accounting effort. As a result, the nation is no closer today to achieving the minimal goal of accounting for just 200 missing persons annually than it was four years ago.

"Presidents and senior defense officials have repeatedly said that accounting for our POWs and MIAs is a national priority. The current Pentagon leadership has had ample time to get this moral imperative right. It is time for them to exercise firm, steady judgment and innovation to make the priority of accounting for 200 prisoners of war a year a reality. We remain committed to helping them achieve that goal," said Chairman Wilson and Ranking Member Davis.