Lack of oversight doomed SBInet, could hamper replacement
expectations and necessitated rework and caused later problems.”
While another report found that officials rigged tests to ensure that the system would pass.
Roughly “70 percent of the procedures for key test events were rewritten extemporaneously during execution because persons conducting the tests determined that the approved procedures were not sufficient or accurate.”
The GAO pointed to several other key problems including the limited ability of border patrol agents to offer input on their specific needs, the cameras took too long to display targets, and requirements for camera detection were lowered from 90 percent accuracy to 49 percent.
Most damningly, the GAO wrote that “From March 2008 through July 2009, about 1,300 SBInet defects have been found, with the number of new defects identified generally increasing faster than the number being fixed—a trend that is not indicative of a system that is maturing.”
In reference to these cost overruns and accusations of poor oversight, Ray Bjorklund, chief knowledge officer at Fedsources, a research firm, said, “I just think that fundamentally it points to the lack of sufficient numbers of qualified acquisition personnel when a program starts slipping and sliding.”
The problems that plagued SBInet are not isolated to DHS alone, but are pervasive in much of the government’s acquisition process.
Other high profile programs facing problems include the current Joint Strike Fighter manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp, which has suffered several cost overruns and delays. Its release could be pushed back as much as seven years and its $50 billion development phase is likely to cost $5 billion more.
Winslow Wheeler, a critic of the program and the director of the Straus Military Reform Project, said “How many more reviews will Gates have to hear before he acknowledges the F-35 is an unaffordable failure?” Adding that, “The F-35 is rapidly becoming a millstone around his neck.”
In another infamous example, the Navy was set to purchase thirty-two new destroyers but due to massive cost overruns and delays the program was cancelled with only three ships purchased, as the cost per ship more than doubled.
In his book, Augustine’s Laws, Norman Augustine, the former undersecretary of the army and former president and CEO of Lockheed Martin, joked that the government’s procurement system has become so dysfunctional that by 2054, “the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft.”
“This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for
