Gates Goes Shopping

Via Katherine Peters:

Ever wonder why the military services have so much trouble buying weapons that are affordable and actually work as advertised? Maybe it’s because they don’t have enough of the right people working in their procurement shops. According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning the Air Force has had a whopping 43 percent average vacancy rate in key acquisition positions over the last eight years. That might account for some of the problems the service has had in a number of programs, from the botched replacement tanker deal scuttled last year to its second-generation wireless local area network, which the IG found was critically flawed in a report earlier this month.