Believing he has responsibility or competence to decide would be his biggest mistake. It wouldn't matter if he actually did have credentials, it's not the role of an executive to decide technical disputes.

Having independent knowledge and skills would enable him to discover when he is being lied to, and usually prevent the attempt.

But he has been installed to direct budget to certain parties outside government, and can probably succeed at that. He might have been installed to commit the DoD to continue delivering budget to those parties long after he has been dismissed.