This Compendium includes a wealth of
reports on defense contracting and acquisition including topics such as
competition in federal contracting; the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) bid-protest process; contracting programs for minority-owned and
other small businesses; the Berry Amendment requiring defense
procurement to come from domestic sources; the Buy America Act; the
specialty metal clause of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation
Supplement (DFARS); Department of Defense food and military uniform
procurement; defense surplus equipment disposal; and more.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has
fielded a technologically advanced and superior military force and is
supplied by a sophisticated acquisition system. This acquisition system
is comprised of the management policy and processes that guide all DOD
acquisition programs. However, at the same time, DOD has experienced
significant problems managing the costs, schedule, and performance of
this acquisition system, despite continued efforts to reform defense
acquisition policies, personnel, and processes. In recent years,
Congress has expressed increasing concerns with the management of the
DOD acquisition system. Congressional concerns include the failure of
DOD to develop effective acquisition strategies to field weapons systems
and effectively provide oversight and accountability for service
contracts and contractors.
Weapon acquisition programs such as the
Future Combat System and the U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater Program have
raised concerns in Congress because they have been managed by
private-sector lead system integrators (LSIs), instead of being managed
by DOD personnel. DOD has conceded in the past that the government has
lacked the organic capability to manage these programs, and is now
taking steps to transfer the role of the LSI to performance by defense
acquisition workforce personnel.
Some observers, for example, point to an
increased use of private security contractors to perform functions
traditionally considered inherently governmental, and question whether
using contractors to perform such functions reduces incentives to build
governmental capacity to carry out these functions. Despite
congressional efforts to expand court-martial jurisdiction and
jurisdiction under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act
(MEJA), some contractors may still remain outside the jurisdiction of
U.S. courts, both civil or military, for improper conduct in connection
with U.S. counterinsurgency operations overseas.
Date of Report: December 17, 2012
Number of Pages: 192
Order Number: C12011
Price: $59.95
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