General George Catlett Marshall only had three and a half years to mobilize, train, deploy, plan, and choose a commander for the Army that invaded the continent of Europe in June of 1944. How did he manage? Clearly the contractor's fault. And George W. Bush.
Having been on both sides of the aisle....as contractor and gov’t representative....I can say that you must absolutely have someone of authority running the contract...grasping the full details of what is required...and pushing the contractor team each single day. That’s the only way that you meet objectives.
The big three screw-ups that I saw....(1) a contract manager who is continually bombarded by higher-up dimwits who continually change the game plan. (2)Contactors brought in and just refuse to cooperate with the plan and the manager won’t terminate them. And (3) Lack of audit capability to show what’s going on or how you are progressing.
In this case....I don’t think anyone in HHS really knew the intended goal on day one....I doubt if the contractors understood the goal on day one...and no one was ever going to be held responsible for failure. Based on this...it was a remarkable one-star marginal episode....doomed for failure.