Subcommittee questions Defense procurement practices

Facing a steady escalation of costs for weapons and services, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Thursday laced into an array of Pentagon officials with a familiar list of complaints about the "volatility" and apparent lack of control over the Defense Department's acquisition practices.

With help from Government Accountability Office Comptroller General David Walker, the panel lurched through a litany of examples of how the cost of fighting wars and developing new weapons has spiraled upward, while asking why there could be shortages of such items as armored vests when actual combat gets under way.

Walker, who has been tilting with the Pentagon for years over its contracting policies, noted anew that "acquisition and contracting in the Department of Defense faces a number of systemic and long-standing challenges that have yet to be effectively addressed."

At the same time, with a gentle knock at Congress, Walker acknowledged that it is not all the Defense Department's fault. Congress, the defense contracting industry, and the military services all contribute to the problem, he said.

He recalled many instances of "the tendency [of contractors] to over-promise, then down the road, to fail to deliver [on the promises]," as well as low-balling on initial bids in order to get the job.

Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member John Murtha, D-Pa., expressed his "great concern over the problem of incremental funding. We [in Congress] put in money for a ship, for example, in the short-term, then in the long term we don't have enough money to pay for it."

Walker sighed and said, "There have been frequent mismatches between wants, needs, affordability and sustainability" of weapons, along with "unrealistic and continually changing requirements" that add to the length and cost of development and testing programs.

Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., admonished defense officials for lapses in their acquisition systems and said, "We want to save taxpayers as much as we can, while getting the needed resources to our war-fighters, with assets that are better than anybody else's."

Defense Department witnesses all insisted the department is aware of the problems and is installing new procedures to streamline and tame the volatility in the cost of acquiring the weapons and other products it needs.

Among other things, said Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, the department is trying to upgrade its contracting workforce. "For our initiatives to succeed," he said, "we must attract and sustain a 21st century acquisition, technology and logistics workforce, a high-performing, ethical workforce."

The Air Force's assistant secretary for acquisition, Sue Payton, said contractors must be disabused of the notion that the low bid always wins. "One of the more significant aspects is the common industry perception that we only award to the lowest bidder," she said.