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 Click here for Future Combat Systems (FCS) Resources Army alters $160B modernization program schedule, Associated Press, By Donna Borak, June 26, 2008.The Army will deliver some key technologies to ground forces in war zones three years ahead of schedule as part of its $160 billion combat modernization program led by Boeing Co. and SAIC Inc. Senior Army officials on Thursday said changes to the "Future Combat Systems" program will expedite the use of high-tech equipment, including unmanned sensors and robotics, to infantry brigades fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2011. Portions of FCS were expected to be used by armored units by 2014, but Army officials say the technology being developed is needed for the current war effort. … The FCS program has long been criticized for remaining over budget and behind schedule. Earlier this year, the House Armed Services Committee voted to cut about $200 million from the Army's request of $3.6 billion for the FCS program in the fiscal 2009 budget. "The Army has struggled to justify FCS for years, this is the latest evolution in this saga," said Nick Schwellenbach, an analyst for the Project on Government Oversight. "Yet at least now FCS may now end up helping troops currently deployed overseas." … Billions for Pentagon Failures, The Washington Independent, By Matthew Blake, May 1, 2008.In 1995, Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales was playing war games in order to determine what military combat might look like in 25 years. In the process, he created "Future Combat Systems," a weapons system made up of unmanned ground and air vehicles that would be directed by computers at an Army base. Thirteen years later, the technology to realize Scales' vision still isn't available. That hasn't stopped the Pentagon from spending more than $20 billion for Boeing, SAIC and 550 other contractors and subcontractors to work on "Future Combat Systems." The original contract estimated the total cost at $15 billion. Paul L. Francis, Government Accountability Office's director of acquisitions, told The Washington Post in December that the weapons system is finally making progress. "They're getting to the point that they should have been at in 2003," Francis said. Future Combat Systems is one of 95 Pentagon weapons programs that have resulted in $295 billion in cost overruns, according to a GAO report released last month. A congressional hearing Tuesday about the report made clear that uncontrolled Pentagon spending is a decades-old problem that may take just as long to reverse. But the problem has grown worse over the past 10 years with the creation of of programs based on unrealized technology, like "Future Combat Systems." These post-Cold War programs were based on still-undeveloped technology and were, until now, subject to little Pentagon or congressional oversight. … But others say that bipartisan scrutiny could finally threaten the most wasteful contracts contained in the $515.4 billion Pentagon budget that Bush sent to Congress in February "It really helps in Congress, if these issues are bipartisan," said Nick Schwellenbach, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight. "Democrats had to reform welfare and it takes a Republican to reform national security." CRS Report - The Army's Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress, April 28, 2005. POGO Alert - Future Combat System to be Restructured, April 5, 2005. Statement from Senator John McCain on the Future Combat Systems Program, April 5, 2005. GAO Testimony – Defense Acquisitions: Future Combat Systems Challenges and Prospects for Success, GAO-05-442T,
Pentagon-Contractor Ties Tight as Ever. Opinion piece by POGO's Eric Miller, Defense News, April 14, 2004.You might expect that a very public, and very embarrassing, series of criminal investigations in recent months would start unraveling the Pentagon-defense contractor cartel.
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