On March 19th we broke the story that Ms. Lynne M. Halbrooks, Principal Deputy Inspector General, Department of Defense Inspector General testified before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform stating that the Army’s Individual Carbine program was under audit due to “concerns that DoD may not have an established need for this weapon nor developed performance requirements for the $1.8 billion acquisition.” What a mouthful.
We hear that as the Army charges ahead with the PIP portion of their “dual path strategy” to modernize Army rifles, they are looking to reprogram the funds set aside to test the Individual Carbine candidates currently under consideration,s effectively ending the program.
But, just as members of the House want the military to adopt a single camouflage uniform, others are working to force the Army to continue to spend funds on a program that its not sure it needs.
Below is the amendment that was added to the 2014 NDAA (HR 1960) by the House Armed Services Committee. The bill passed out of committee on Thursday and should hit the House floor this week.
OFFERED BY Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ OF CALIFORNIA
At the appropriate place in title II, insert the following:
1 SEC. 2_. REQUIREMENT TO COMPLETE INDIVIDUAL CAR-
2 BINE TESTING.
3 The Secretary of the Army may not cancel the indi-
4 ·vidual carbine program unless the Secretary-
5 (1) completes the Phase III down-select and
6 user-evaluation phase of the individual carbine com-
7 petitors;
8 (2) conducts the required comprehensive busi-
9 ness case analysis of such program; and
10 (3) submits to the congressional defense com-
11 mittees-
12 (A} the results of the down-select and user
13 evaluation described in paragraph (1); and
14 (B) the business case analysis described in
15 paragraph (2).
