Time Is Money

Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter agrees with the QDR Independent Review panel suggestion that programs be given a hard deadline by which they must perform. Carter said that until recently, when money or performance didn’t measure up, services took the “easy” solution of “kicking them to the right.” But adding time also adds money, and Carter said a year’s delay on a 10-year program means another 10 percent in cost. He said he hopes the Long Range Strike system will be available in the five to seven years the QDR red team suggested. “We have to control the variable of time,” Carter asserted.