American Notes MILITARY

Fed up with sophisticated weapons systems that do not live up to expectations, Congress created the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation in 1983 with a clear mandate: test all major new weapons systems under realistic "operational" conditions. No new systems would be purchased in significant quantities without approval from OT&E. But according to a General Accounting Office report, OT&E has been a failure.

The GAO examined six weapons systems, including the Aegis defense system used by U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf. "In all six cases," said the report, "the test agencies stated findings that were not consistent with the evidence." Among the OT&E's sins: setting up targets that were slower or easier to hit than those in combat and using few or no countermeasures, such as radar jamming, to challenge the weapons systems.