House leader faults Pentagon over lack of armor for vehicles

House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., took on the Pentagon's cumbersome acquisition system Wednesday, criticizing it for leaving soldiers in the field without armor kits for their Humvees and trucks, and asserting that steel used to build them had been sitting at a U.S. mill for months while vehicles were being blown up by improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

"We've got an acquisition system that doesn't work," Hunter told a panel of Pentagon acquisition officials at a committee hearing on troop protection in Iraq. He added that "it takes months and months and months" for the United States to respond with something as simple as a piece of steel.

Hunter praised the innovation of troops in Iraq who circumvented the Pentagon's bureaucratic red tape by purchasing local steel to harden their vehicles. "The guys in the field get a faster reaction out of a machine shop in Tikrit" than from the Pentagon, he said.

Hunter also took a hands-on approach to the armor kit problem, paying a recent visit to a machine shop at Quantico, Va., where he and a retired Marine general cut and assembled a steel double-hull box that could be used to harden a truck. Hunter said the military requires three months to build such a kit.

"After three months, we built as many kits as one retired Marine general could put together himself in two hours," he said.

The simplicity of Hunter's armor-kit instructions stood in sharp contrast to the explanations provided by Pentagon officials who described the shortcomings of the Defense Department's ponderous requirements and acquisition process, in testimony before the committee.

But after "going through this litany of how we develop this whole process," Hunter said the acquisition system needs to be fixed.

"We've got a couple of steel mills that make this stuff," Hunter said. "Let's get them moving. Let's make a bunch of it. What do you think?"

Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief, described Hunter's idea as "interesting" and "doable," adding, "We need to take this on board and see how fast we can execute it."