US Army May Kill $19Bn Boeing Radio Contract

The Department of Defense (DoD) is considering sending a $19.5 billion army radio contract to the chopping block, which would open the field up to competitors and put cash back into taxpayers' pockets. If the expensive radio program is merely delayed, not terminated, it would save the government about $2.3 billion, according to two co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR). The program in question is Boeing Company's ground mobile radio (GMR) program, which is part of a larger DoD initiative called the Joint Tactical Radio System, or “jitters” in Pentagon-speak. According to Boeing, the GMR program—which has produced about 86,000 radios—is an “affordable software radio system that provides secure, reliable, multi-channel voice, data and video communications for mobile military users [aka, soldiers in vehicles].” But given that the DoD must find up to $450 billion in budget cuts over the next ten years, calling this program “affordable” may be an overstatement. As reported in The Chicago Tribune, in 2005 the program was plagued by delays, and the Army issued Boeing a “show cause” letter, giving them a thirty-day window to prove the program was worth saving. Paul Francis, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) told the paper the program was delayed “by the basic issues of space, weight and power.” In 2009, GAO issued a follow-up assessment of the program. According to that report, “the cost of the [ground mobile radio] program continues to grow...current estimated program acquisition until costs are still almost 20 percent higher than originally estimated.”