Urgent gear requests not met, document says

[thedrifter]

Urgent gear requests not met, document says
By Richard Lardner - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday May 24, 2007 18:33:00 EDT

The system for delivering badly needed gear to Marines in Iraq has failed to meet a large number of urgent calls for equipment submitted by troops in the field, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.

Of more than 100 requests for critically needed items submitted by deployed Marine units between February 2006 and February 2007, less than 10 percent have been met, the document states. It blamed excessive bureaucracy and a “risk-averse” approach by acquisition authorities.

“Process worship cripples operating forces,” according to the document. “Civilian middle management lacks technical and operational currency.”

The 32-page “For Official Use Only” document was prepared by the staff of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif. It was to be presented in March to senior officials in the Pentagon’s defense research and engineering office. The presentation was canceled by top Marine Corps leaders because its contents were deemed too contentious, according to a defense official familiar with the document.

The document’s claims run counter to the public description of a process intended to cut through the layers of red tape that frequently slow the military’s procurement process.

The Marine Corps had no immediate comment on the document.

In a briefing Wednesday, Marine Corps officials hailed their “Urgent Universal Need Statement” system as a way to give Marines in combat a greater say in weapons-buying decisions.

“What we all liked about [the urgent requests] is they came from the operators out on the ground and there was always a perceived better way of doing things,” said Maj. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, who was a commander in Iraq from June 2004 to February 2005.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Pendleton report: Red tape blocked gear for troops

By: Associated Press and staff reports

The system for getting badly needed gear to Iraq failed to meet many urgent requests for equipment from troops in the field, according to an internal document prepared by Marine Corps officials at Camp Pendleton and delivered to the Pentagon in March.

Of more than 100 requests from deployed Marine units between February 2006 and this February, less than 10 percent have been fulfilled, the document obtained by The Associated Press says.

It blamed the bureaucracy and a "risk-averse" approach by acquisition officials.


Among the items held up were a mine resistant vehicle and a hand-held laser system.

"Process worship cripples operating forces," according to the document. "Civilian middle management lacks technical and operational currency."

The 32-page document was prepared by the staff of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force after the 25,000-member unit returned from Iraq in February. Efforts to reach expeditionary force officials Thursday were unsuccessful.

The document was to be presented in March to the Pentagon's defense research and engineering office but was canceled by Marine Corps leaders because its contents were deemed too contentious, according to a defense official.

The document's claims run counter to the public description of a process intended to cut through the layers of red tape.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said the report underscores a long-standing problem in military procurement.

"The bureaucracy is never as responsive as the troops in the field need it to be," he said. "There's just too much red tape and you have too many situations where a colonel in the field is not able to get what his men need. We need to change tactics now."

In 2005, Hunter sponsored a law that allows the secretary of defense to waive the bid process for urgently needed equipment. To date, the provision has only been enacted once ---- for 10,000 hand-held jammers for troops to use against roadside bombs.

Hunter's son, Duncan Duane Hunter, leaves for Afghanistan today as part of a recent call-up of Marine reserves. His deployment gives an greater sense or urgency on the issue, the congressman said.

The document lists 24 examples of equipment urgently needed by Marines in Iraq's Anbar province where about 8,000 locally based Marines are now serving.

One, the mine resistant vehicle, has received attention as a promising way to protect troops from roadside blasts, the leading killer of U.S. forces.

After receiving a February 2005 urgent request from Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Marine forces in the Middle East, for nearly 1,200 of the vehicles, the Marine Corps instead bought improved versions of the Humvee.

The industrial capacity did not exist to quickly build the mine resistant vehicles and the more heavily armored Humvees were viewed as a suitable solution, officials said.

That proved not to be the case as insurgents in Iraq developed more powerful bombs. The mine resistant vehicles are now a top priority for all the military branches, which plan to buy 7,774 of the carriers at a cost of $8.4 billion.

A second example cited is the compact, high-power laser dazzler, an inexpensive, nonlethal tool for steering suspect vehicles away from U.S. checkpoints in Iraq.

In June 2005, Marines in western Iraq filed an urgent request for several hundred dazzlers built by LE Systems in Hartford, Conn. The request was repeated nearly a year later.

The deployed Marines became so frustrated at the delays that they bypassed normal acquisition procedures and used money from their own budget to buy 28 dazzlers.

But because the lasers had not passed a safety review process, stateside authorities barred the Marines from using them. In January, the Marines received a less powerful laser built by a different company.

Staff writer Mark Walker contributed material used in this report.

Ellie