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DOD Plans Return to 'Defense Travel System'

In a memorandum released last month, the Defense Department announced that previous directions to begin using the new MyTravel system have been repealed, and agencies should instead return to using the existing Defense Travel System.  

"DOD organizations currently using MyTravel are no longer required to use the system," wrote Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr., undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in a memorandum dated May 24. "Additionally, DOD organizations may suspend the planning and implementation of future financial system integrations."  

Both the Defense Travel System, or DTS, and MyTravel, are web-based applications that allow military and civilian personnel within the military services and DOD to plan official government travel.   

The systems automate the booking of flights, lodging and rental cars and also produce official travel orders. When returning from a trip, the systems allow for the documenting of expenses and the generation of vouchers so travelers can be compensated for their expenses.  

The Defense Travel System has been in use within the department for about 25 years. Before that, travel was planned using paper forms and telephones.  

In August 2018, the department announced it had selected SAP Concur's software as a service product, later branded as MyTravel, to replace DTS.  And in an October 2022 memorandum, Cisneros directed DOD travelers to begin using MyTravel, when possible.   

That direction has now been rescinded. Instead, travelers are instructed to use DTS for all new travel that ends after July 13, 2023.  

Cisneros said DOD will cease MyTravel operations in September 2023.  

Officials within the DOD's Defense Human Resources Activity said continued development of the MyTravel system is no longer in the best interests of the Department.  

Reasons for that include decreases in travel due to COVID-19 , increases in virtual meetings, and a shift in departmental focus to achieving a clean financial audit.  

According to a DOD press release, the department spends about $9 billion annually on travel, with temporary duty travel comprising about 70 percent of all travel vouchers.  

For More Information  "MyTravel" Update      Repeal of Mandatory Use of MyTravel   

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DoD suddenly abandons $374 million plan to replace Defense Travel System

The Pentagon has cancelled its replacement for the Defense Travel System (DTS) after five years of development and tens of millions of dollars in spending. The ...

Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 2, 2022 at 3:50 p.m. EDT to incorporate comments from a Pentagon spokeswoman explaining the decision to cancel the MyTravel program.

The Defense Department has abruptly cancelled the new travel management system it has spent five years and tens of millions of dollars to build and implement, and is telling all of its users to return to using the antiquated and much-maligned system the new one was supposed to replace.

In a May 24 memo , Gil Cisneros, the undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, announced the sudden end of the program, called MyTravel, saying the new system will completely cease operations on Sept. 13. The memo gave no explanation for the change in course.

The Pentagon’s public affairs office initially told Federal News Network the department would not be able to provide any details about the decision until later this week. After this story’s initial publication, a spokeswoman said DoD had determined the MyTravel program was “no longer in the best interests of the department,” although it had “made significant advancements.”

“Travel volume has been significantly lower than the travel transaction volume that was projected at [the time of] contract award due to COVID-19 and a shift to virtual meetings,” Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.  “Additionally, department priorities have shifted to focus on DoD financial improvement and readiness to achieve an unmodified audit opinion (i.e., a ‘clean audit’).  These factors ultimately resulted in the decision to not exercise this next option year of the contract.”

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In Sept. 2021, DoD awarded SAP Concur a sole-source $374 million contract to operate MyTravel, the department’s replacement for the Defense Travel System (DTS), for up to seven years. Not all of that money has been spent: DoD’s latest decision effectively means it will decline to exercise the contract’s last five option years.

However, records in the Federal Procurement Data System show DoD has already obligated at least $13 million toward the contract. That figure doesn’t include the additional work that’s been required to integrate MyTravel with DoD components’ financial management systems and other aspects of the transition, such as training. It also does not include a separate, $10 million other transaction agreement the department issued to SAP Concur, Booz Allen Hamilton, Accenture and CWTSato Travel in August 2018 to design the prototype that formed the basis for the new system.

In its Friday statement, the department did not provide specific data to support the contention that its projected travel needs had decreased since the contract was first awarded. But publicly-available records appear to show the trend heading in the opposite direction, at least as of 2022.

According to data the department submits to the Office of Management and Budget each year, DoD had $8.40 billion in total travel pay outlays in 2022, its largest amount since 2011. That’s compared to $6.55 billion in 2021, when the production contract was awarded to SAP Concur, $7.96 billion in 2018, when the prototype OTA was awarded, and $5.28 billion in 2017, when DoD first conducted the business case that supported going ahead with the DTS replacement that eventually became MyTravel.

The complete cancellation was also unexpected in light of the fact that only seven months ago, Cisneros issued a memo telling DoD components that the Pentagon was starting to make the use of MyTravel mandatory as it moved toward sunsetting DTS.

“The department continues to make critical investments in systems that create efficiencies and drive down administrative costs,” he wrote in the Oct. 2022 message. “MyTravel enables the department to retire legacy travel systems while delivering an industry leading product that aligns with the department’s broader technical strategy, [including] cloud computing, cybersecurity and data management.”

And as recently as March, when DoD delivered its 2024 budget proposal to Congress, the department said the system had already been deployed to Defense agencies, and would be rolled out to each of the military services by late 2023.

In a notice on the Defense Travel Management Office’s website, officials said the DoD components that have already started using MyTravel would get more detailed guidance on how to wind down their use of the new system “in due course.”

         Read more: Defense News

But officials told Defense organizations they should plan to revert back to the old Defense Travel System by July 13, presumably to allow enough time to finalize any MyTravel transactions before the new system ceases functioning in September.

The Pentagon has been trying to replace DTS since as early as 2015, when the Defense Digital Service started working on its own, separate pilot project to stand up a commercially-based alternative. The current system is widely disliked by users, and officials have characterized it as “aging,” “cumbersome” and “inefficient.”

The Government Accountability Office also found in a 2019 study that DTS was responsible for an estimated $965 million in improper payments between 2016 and 2018. DoD said in its 2021 financial report that it expected MyTravel to significantly lower the improper payment rate. It remained high as of 2022, with 4.27% of DoD’s $8.4 billion in travel payments categorized as improper, according to the government’s paymentaccuracy.gov database.

The department initially had extremely high hopes for MyTravel in other ways as well. At the time of the prototype award, officials projected that the system would “exponentially lower the cost of airline tickets” and save more than 10 million labor hours each year by simplifying the travel booking process.

Later, in 2021, when the Pentagon issued its contract for the production version of MyTravel, it justified the sole-source decision by saying that only SAP Concur’s solution could meet its needs for a DTS replacement, because the work the company had already done to integrate its commercial software-as-a-service offering with DoD’s systems was “highly specialized.”

“It has taken three years, including more than 30 sprint cycles, for Concur to configure [MyTravel] and adapt it for DoD’s specific operational and regulatory compliance requirements,” Defense officials wrote in contracting paperwork justifying the decision to make the $374 million award without competition. “Through the iterative sprint process, Concur implemented configuration of their travel and expense product to provide the DoD with functionality in accordance with the DoD Joint Travel Regulation (JTR). This included configuration for temporary duty business travel, local travel, travel to military installations and overseas travel. Concur also built the Concur Cloud for Public Sector hosted in Amazon Web Service (AWS) GovCloud to provide the baseline required for FedRAMP and DoD cybersecurity requirements.”

The same 2021 document emphasized the urgency of moving the department away from DTS because of its user unfriendliness, auditability problems and heavy technical debt. Only Concur’s solution could achieve that in a reasonable timeframe, officials argued.

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“Any delays will impact the government because it will require continued use of the aging travel system,” according to the justification and approval document approved by John Tenaglia, the department’s top official for pricing and contracting policy. “The longer these DTS conditions persist, the longer DoD will go without realizing the full benefit of a modernized cloud-based commercial travel and expense capability, and the more time and money it will lose due to the current system’s inefficiencies. Additionally, continuing to use DTS will require further investment to update it, making the efforts and investment in [MyTravel] over the past three years meaningless.”

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Jared Serbu is deputy editor of Federal News Network and reports on the Defense Department’s contracting, legislative, workforce and IT issues.

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‘Indefinite’ Defense Department IDs Inconvenience Air Travelers, May Be Dropped As Acceptable Identification

Military retirees and some spouses or dependents whose next-generation Department of Defense identification cards have an "INDEF" expiration date continue to face problems using their IDs to traverse Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at U.S. airports.

And a potential solution under consideration at TSA -- that the agency drops the IDs, known as USIDs, as acceptable forms of identification when stricter travel requirements are implemented next year -- is sure to irritate those who like using their military IDs instead of a state driver's license or passport for travel.

Nearly a dozen military retirees have contacted Military.com in the past two years with concerns that their ID cards marked INDEF, meaning they have an indefinite expiration date, don't work with TSA screening technology in airports across the country.

Read Next: Pentagon's Second Review of Abbey Gate Attack Finds Troops Didn't See Bomber Before the Explosion

Former service members have run into the issue at Chicago O'Hare International, Seattle-Tacoma International, Orlando International, Tampa International, San Diego International and elsewhere.

According to TSA press secretary R. Carter Langston, the problem centers around USIDs that lack an expiration date. The "INDEF" designation cannot be read by the TSA's Credential Authentication Technology. When the CAT unit does not detect an expiration date, the CAT screen will display an "EXPIRED" alert, according to Langston.

The TSA officer is supposed to ask for another acceptable form of ID that can be read by the CAT unit, Langston said. If the passenger does not have another acceptable form of ID, the officer "will conduct manual inspection of the DoD ID presented as these IDs are currently acceptable forms of ID," Langston said in a statement.

The issue is largely a matter of inconvenience, since many people travel with a driver's license, passport or other form of identification.

But for DoD ID card holders, it could become a major problem beginning May 7, 2025, when all travelers and visitors to the U.S. will be required to have a passport, a state-verified REAL ID or another form of identification designated as acceptable by TSA.

Since the REAL ID Act of 2005 was passed, Defense Department IDs holders have been told their IDs are compliant and acceptable in lieu of a REAL ID and many have not bothered to get a REAL ID compatible state identification card.

They may need to or begin traveling with a passport, because given the ongoing issues, TSA is considering dropping DoD IDs from their list of accepted identification before the REAL ID requirement goes into effect, according to a source with knowledge of ongoing discussions between TSA and the Defense Department.

The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment on the proposal, and Langston said he would not "confirm or deny discussions that are pre-decisional in nature."

But the proposal does not sit well among some former service members who spent decades serving their country and take pride in carrying a military ID.

"You can get on any military base in the country, but you can't get on an airplane with a military ID card? I don't agree with that at all," said a military retiree based in Washington state who requested that his name not be used to protect how he learned of the proposal.

The source added that the decision is not final and discussions were ongoing.

The Defense Department updated the new IDs, known as USID, for active-duty family members, military retirees and their dependents, reservists and Medal of Honor recipients in 2020, the first upgrade to the cards since 1993.

The USID cards look similar to Common Access Cards, which are issued to active-duty personnel, but they don't have a built-in chip. They were created to have durable lamination, full-color photos and enhanced security features to make them less able to counterfeit or misuse.

When the USIDs were introduced, TSA's scanning system was unable to read their barcodes. That issue largely was fixed in 2022 with a software update , and DoD ID cards work for most individuals whose cards have an expiration date.

But the problem continues for IDs with the "INDEF" date. And retirees aren't happy about it.

"It's been my assumption all along [that I could fly with a DoD ID card]," said the Washington-based retired officer. "I had an old ID until just a couple of months ago, and it worked just fine."

Related: Defense Department Expands ID Card Renewals by Mail to US-Based Retirees, Dependents

Patricia Kime

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UnitedHealth says hackers possibly stole large number of Americans' data

UnitedHealth Group said on Monday that hackers stole health and personal data of potentially a "substantial proportion" of Americans from its systems in February, as the largest U.S. health insurer scrambles to contain the damage.

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U.S. issues travel warning for Israel with Iran attack believed to be imminent and fear Gaza war could spread

By Debora Patta , Tucker Reals

Updated on: April 13, 2024 / 5:25 PM EDT / CBS News

Update: Iran launched drone attacks against Israel on Saturday. Read CBS News'  latest coverage here .

Tel Aviv  — Israel is bracing for a worst-case scenario that U.S. officials believe could materialize within just hours — the possibility of a direct attack on Israeli soil by Iran in retaliation for a strike almost two weeks ago that killed seven Iranian military officers. Iran has vowed to take revenge for Israel killing its commanders, who were hit by an April 1 strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria's capital.

Two U.S. officials told CBS News that a major Iranian attack against Israel was expected as soon as Friday, possibly to include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles aimed at military targets inside the country. Sources have told CBS News the retaliation could include attacks carried out both by Iranian forces, and proxy groups around the region that it has been funneling additional arms to for weeks.  

The officials said it would be challenging for the Israelis to defend against an attack of that magnitude, and while they held out the possibility that the Iranians could opt for a smaller-scale attack to avoid a dramatic escalation, their retaliation was believed to be imminent. 

Asked Friday how imminent he believes an attack is, President Biden responded, "I don't want to get into secure information, but my expectation is sooner than later." The president urged Iran not to move forward, saying his message to Tehran was: "Don't."

Tehran has not indicated publicly how or when it will return fire, so it's unclear how far Iran's leaders will go. If they decide to carry out a direct attack on Israel, there's fear it could blow Israel's ongoing war against Iranian ally Hamas up into a much wider regional conflict.

With the Iranian retaliation expected at any time, the U.S. State Department on Thursday warned Americans in Israel not to travel outside major cities, which are better protected from incoming rocket fire by the country's Iron Dome missile defense system. The latest guidance noted that travel by U.S. government employees in Israel could be further restricted with little notice as things develop in the tinderbox region.

"Whoever harms us, we will harm them," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Thursday as he visited troops at an Israel Defense Forces airbase. "We are prepared … both defensively and offensively."

On Saturday, all U.S. embassies in the Middle East were put on high alert and required to hold emergency action committee meetings. Diplomats in Lebanon and Israel were specifically told not to travel to certain areas within those countries.

Sima Shine, a security expert and former official with Israel's national intelligence agency Mossad, told CBS News it was a dangerous moment for the region, and the "most worried" she has been. She said anxiety over an all-out war was likely just as high "on both sides, in Israel and in Iran."

If Iran does choose to strike Israel directly, it could involve a complex missile and drone attack similar to the one Iranian forces launched against a Saudi oil facility in 2019 .

"They will try to do it on the military or some military asset," Shine predicted. "But the question will be the damage. If there would be many injured people, killed or injured … I think it has the potential for a huge escalation."

Shine stressed, however, that she still believes neither side actually wants a regional conflict.

U.S. "really trying to avoid war"

The U.S. sent a senior general to Israel this week to coordinate with the close American ally on any response it might make to an Iranian attack. Speaking Friday on "CBS Mornings," America's top military officer said, "we're really trying to avoid war."

"This is part of the dialogue that I have with my counterparts within the region, to include the Israeli chief of defense, who I talked to yesterday," said Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., adding that the U.S. military was "doing things not only to prevent a war, but at the same time, one of my primary things is to make sure all the forces in the region are protected."

"My role, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is to plan and prepare," Brown said. "That's one thing we do very well."

Brown's Israeli counterpart, Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, "completed a comprehensive situational assessment on the readiness of the IDF for all scenarios," Israel's military said Friday. 

"The IDF is very strongly prepared, both offensively and defensively, against any threat," Halevi was quoted as saying in the statement. "The IDF continues to monitor closely what is happening in Iran and different arenas, constantly preparing to deal with existing and potential threats in coordination with the United States Armed Forces." 

The IDF said the visiting U.S. general, Central Command chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, was taking part in the IDF's situational assessment.

The dilemma for Iran, said Israeli expert Shine, is to figure out how to deliver its promised response to Israel's attack in Syria, but in a way that does not lead to further escalation. Likewise, Shine said Israel could choose to show restraint when it responds to whatever Iran eventually does.

If either side gets the balance wrong, the consequences for the region, and even the world, could be dire.

Weijia Jiang, David Martin, Margaret Brennan and Olivia Gazis contributed reporting.

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Debora Patta is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.

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