National Defense > Blog > Posts > Rep. Norm Dicks: Last Year's Weapons Acquisition Reform Act Fell Short

4/15/2010

Rep. Norm Dicks: Last Year's Weapons Acquisition Reform Act Fell Short
Congress may have missed the target when it passed a much-heralded acquisition reform bill last year. Even lawmakers are now questioning whether the legislation — the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009  — attacked the right set of problems plaguing the military procurement process.

“I’m not sure we did the right thing,” said Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-WA), chairman of House defense appropriations subcommittee.

“We may have to re-look at this,” Dicks said at an April 15 forum hosted by the Aerospace Industries Association on Capitol Hill. Following remarks by Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn, Dicks lashed out at the dysfunction of current weapon-buying practices. Major programs are not just getting more expensive but also taking so long that the technology becomes outdated by the time a piece of equipment is fielded, he said.

The problem is that the system provides the wrong incentives. Contractors benefit from delays because they can charge the government more money for design changes, said Dicks. The government rewards big-ticket programs that keep piling on more high-tech requirements even if they are not useful or relevant.

“When we see what happened with Comanche, Future Combat Systems, Combat Search and Rescue [helicopter], all these programs were canceled,” said Dicks, because costs and schedules spiraled out of control. “We have to do something,” he said in frustration. “What we are doing today is not working.”

This has to be “one of the highest priorities,” said Dicks. He questioned whether the Pentagon’s plan to hire thousands of new acquisition professionals will make a dent in the problem. “Maybe we’ve got to rethink the incentives we give industry to be in this,” he said. The Defense Department should follow the MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected) armored vehicle model for how to acquire equipment quickly and efficiently, Dicks said.

Things didn’t use to be this bad, he lamented. In the 1960s and 1970s, several classified programs such as the SR-71 and F-117 stealth aircraft were developed and fielded in less than three years. Now, it takes decades to complete major programs. “Based on my 31 years of experience I think this is one of the issues that has to be addressed,” Dicks said.

Lynn, in response to Dicks’ grievances, agreed that the Defense Department has to “re-look at the incentive structure for industry, and for government program managers.” He said one intended remedy is be to increase the use of fixed-price contracts for systems, but only when the technology is mature enough that it does not create risks for the government. “In the ‘80s we tried it and it was a disaster. It was overused,” said Lynn. “If we’re inventing technology, then fixed-price development is not the right approach.” But when the technology is mature, fixed-price contracts restrain the ability to change requirements and save money, he said.

In recent months, the Pentagon has been under fire for soaring costs and delays in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The JSF has become the poster child for programs that take too long to bring to fruition and gets redesigned so much that invariably become cost prohibitive. The F-35 and most of the Pentagon’s largest and most expensive systems still operate under rules that make it virtually impossible to deliver new hardware in less than a decade.

“We have an acquisition system which still has Cold War vestiges. … It was designed to prepare for a future war, rather than to conduct a current war,” said Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s chief procurement official, at an industry forum earlier this month.

Harvey M. Sapolsky, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a consultant to defense firms, believes that acquisition reform has become the perennial hopeless cause. “Administrations promise it. Commissions report about it. Congressional committees hold hearings on it. Laws are drafted, passed, and signed. … But cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance lapses still plague nearly all weapon system acquisitions,” he wrote in this month’s issue of National Defense. “Acquisition reform is the false promise that we can get it right next time. Somehow with more government contract monitors and tougher regulations we will repeal the reality of roller coaster budgets and the need to promise more than can be easily delivered in order to get the chance to build new weapon systems.”
Posted at 4:05 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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