Posted on 05/06/2005 5:34:07 AM PDT by OESY
What happens when an "independent" commission advising the federal government takes its independent status seriously? What happens if the commissioners tell the cold-blooded truth, no matter how many special interests are gored?
We're going to find out....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The U.S. military is the toughest and most professional in the world, but one force it usually can't beat is the bureaucracy back in Washington. The Defense Department has 200,000 acquisition personnel, whose insistence on doing everything "by the numbers" slows to a crawl efforts to get vital equipment such as armor into the field.
But the bureaucracy can be defeated, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demonstrated last week when he invoked his new "Rapid Acquisition Authority," allowing him to cut through the red tape to meet urgent battlefield needs. By invoking this power, Mr. Rumsfeld has given the Secretary of the Army 15 days to find a way to mass produce a new device that can jam the electronic signals insurgents use to detonate improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
The portable jammer, developed by the Navy, saves lives by stopping bombs from going off. It costs less than $1,000 each. But when estimates came in that it would take 13 months to field under the normal acquisition procedures, it became clear it was time to take Rapid Acquisition Authority out for a test drive. Now the jammers could be on their way to Iraq in a matter of weeks.
The Pentagon's sorry procurement system is a creation of Congress, which barely could bring itself to pass Rapid Acquisition Authority last year. (Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter did yeoman service to get it passed, but House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was so conflicted she abstained.) It currently is limited to just $100 million in spending, a fraction of the $75 billion defense procurement budget. The small victory on jammers is a good reason to expand this kind of efficient procurement to more military spending.
Why, I can think of all sorts of things.
ping
Yep, FAR is a mess - huge, contradictory, micro-managed and bureaucratic. Read the specification for the governments first airplane procurement - it took one page (IIRC). Times have changed. The costs associated with the regulations exceed their benefits by an order of magnitude.
When legislators found ways to use the military to acquire favors in the public sector...i.e., kickbacks for contracts (disguised in rules/regs).....the process created the great abyss of "forms" and red tape...IMHO
Well, they can park some vehicles in my yard, but I'd ask that they please keep the .50 cal fire to a minimum after 11:00pm
Indeed. . .too many people that should know better--like congressmen--always seem to blame the military for FAR problems when it is public law enacted by the very congress that is causing the problem, but yet the congress throws stones at the military acquisition system. . .a system that is way over-regulated and burdened by pork projects and congress leads the MSM in military acquisition bashing. There is no shame in the House of Shame called Capitol Hill.
Like our tax code it needs to be completely rethought and modernized - to the point of radical change. Eliminating income tax and replacing it with a national retail sales tax would be the equivalent that I have in mind for FAR. I haven't worked with DOD in 10+ years, and I suspect it is worse now than it was then (and it was AWEFUL then).
Any specifics which you can share briefly? My ideas are 1) buy commercial and fixed price whenever you can (in spite of the lack of MILSPEC gold plating) 2) spend time and money defining realistic requirements FIRST (and do this within the purchasing service not on a cost plus basis by contractors) 3) get a ruthless SECDEF who will squash interservice rivalry so the programs land in the right service [Rummy qualifies in my book] (I know "jointness" is a buzzword so I won't use it) etc. Beyond that I could stand to be informed.
Exactly. Most, although not all, of the "acquisition bureaucrats" that I've known, want to get the job done as quickly as possible, but they are as hamstrung by the FAR as anyone else.
Given your name, I'd have thought you were more concerned with the "88's" going off.
Full Disclosure: Yes, I *KNOW* that's not what Panzerfaust means...
Cheers!
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