Retired lawmakers called on a House panel yesterday to be diligent in reforming the way the Pentagon buys weapons in order to field capabilities quicker.
Three former armed services committee chairmen agreed during testimony on Capitol Hill with House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Ranking Member Adam Smith’s (D-Wash.) assertion that weapons programs drag on for far too long.
“I think we need to be more flexible in terms of buying technology that’s already out there and available, and get off of so many programs of record that start us down the path of working forever on something that may not work,” Smith said at the HASC hearing with three former armed services committee chairmen.
John Warner, the former Republican Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) chairman from Virginia, called for the House panel to do more.
“I’ll have to be blunt and say the buck stops on your desk,” he told the HASC. “You have got to exercise stronger oversight. You have got to put in place laws like Nunn-McCurdy and others to deter the very thing that you say.” The so-called Nunn-McCurdy law spells out what to do with over-budget weapons programs.
The HASC hearing with the former congressional defense leaders yesterday was part of a series intended to explore lessons learned since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They are being held as HASC Republicans lobby against any additional cuts to the Pentagon budget from the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is considering reductions in addition to the $450 billion taken from the Pentagon’s longterm plans by the new deficit-cutting law.
Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chaired the HASC until he lost his reelection bid in 2010, when the Republicans took control of the House, told the committee it should look again at acquisition-reform bills it crafted in 2009 and 2010.
“I would hope this committee could revisit those laws and see how they are operating,” Skelton said. “They were supposed to solve money problems as well as time problems, and I’m convinced that they were well-written. And the question is whether there’s follow-through, and this committee is the follow-through on it.”
Duncan Hunter, the retired HASC chairman and California Republican whose son now serves on the committee, called for a mix of action by the House committee and less acquisition-related bureaucracy in the Pentagon. He lauded work the committee did in the past to allow the Pentagon to bypasss acquisition regulations and quickly field systems to troops in Iraq.
“You have to fast-field equipment, and there is a disconnect between the bureaucracy here that doesn’t want to let go of the acquisition process and the guys in the field,” the elder Hunter said. He said lawmakers should “streamline the bureaucracy,” which he acknowledged is “easier said than done.”
“We’re in the business of protecting the system from ourselves and from the Pentagon by having a labyrinth of regulations, which very often are a disservice,” he said. “And then when we have a scandal–we have the $200 hammer, for example–we lay on more regulations to fix that and go in exactly the wrong direction.”
Hunter called for less bureaucracy and more “individual responsibility” in the Pentagon regarding weapons development.
“You’ve got to have somebody who says, ‘I’m willing to take a chance on that system. Let’s get it to the battlefield.’ And if it doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to, I’ll take the fall for that. We can’t simply be in the business of justifying cost. We have to also be in the business of getting things out the door quickly and taking a risk.”
Warner maintained that while he believes more congressional oversight of Pentagon acquisition is needed, “you cannot stifle innovation.”
“You’ve got to take a measure of risk exploring new technology, some of which will fail,” the retired senator said. “But at the same time, when you do decide to go forward with the program, give it stability. Give it continuity. But have oversight and do not fear the threat to cancel that contract if the case merits it.”