The Pentagon office that oversees weapons testing will shrink by nearly half, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered on Wednesday, which will leave individual service branches to conduct testing with a smaller Defense Department watchdog.

The Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, will cut its workforce from 94 employees to 30 civilians and 15 service members. In a Wednesday memo , Hegseth said that a "comprehensive internal review has identified redundant, non-essential, non-statutory functions within ODOT&E that do not support operational agility or resource efficiency." In a video released the same day, he described the reorganization as one that “will make testing and fielding weapons more efficient so that warfighters get what they need faster,” and

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