Army Blueprint

Army leaders are using the recommendations from an outside study on acquisition as a "blueprint" for improvements, service Secretary John McHugh told lawmakers during a House Armed Services Committee hearing today. The topic came up when Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) read from an Inside the Army article that broke the news of the study's results.

Canceled programs have eaten up between $3.3 billion and $3.8 billion per year since 2004, according to a set of mid-December briefing slides marked for presentation to Army Secretary John McHugh. The numbers represent an average of 35 percent to 45 percent of the Army's annual budget for development, testing and engineering, or 25 percent when factoring in the cancellation of the hugely expensive Future Combat Systems program.

McHugh said he had tasked Army acquisition chief Malcolm O'Neill with developing an implementation strategy for the study's recommendations.