GovernmentExecutive.com

The Defense Department plans to spend about $34 billion over five years to develop a global information grid, but the department's decentralized management approach "is not optimized to enforce investment decisions across the department," according to the Government Accountability Office.

A GAO report issued Tuesday found that the department lacks the coordination to make the grid a reality.

GAO said that while Defense's chief information officer has a leading role, military agencies have more influence on program investments and decisions than the CIO.

The department's decision-making processes, including resource allocation and managing acquisitions, have outdated mission areas and are not flexible enough to accommodate rapidly emerging technologies," GAO said, adding that the lack of integration of decision-making processes cannot ensure that development efforts are affordable or feasible.

COMMENTS

• Follow the money trail and you'll see the confusion. When the Pentagon taxes the GIG budget substantially and other programs tax it heavily to support favored contractors as it moves through their domain, what is left for the people making the GIG happen is laughable. How do you build an operations center, buy furniture and equipment, and hire engineers to support the project with no money? Face it, we're supporting a big war and several smaller police type actions at the moment. Planes and ships burn lots of fuel at prices well over $2.00 a gallon. So do armored Humvees. Bullets, bombs, and missiles get costly too. Follow the money trail and see how much gets to where the rubber meets the road. Jay Heyser Jay Heyser Posted February 7, 2006 7:22 PM