A special Navy combat ship program is behind schedule, hundreds of millions over budget and unable to carry out basic missions — and senators are demanding to know why, the Washington Examiner reports.
The Navy's Littoral Combat Ship program was set to begin service in 2008 at a cost of $220 million per ship. The cost has now more than doubled to $478 million each, the Examiner noted. Ships have been commissioned and deployed, but do not yet have the equipment allowing them to perform their primary missions.
The ships were envisioned as combat vessels with a dramatic hull design, allowing them to be faster and operate closer to shore. State-of-the-art equipment was supposed to allow them to take out surface threats, hunt mines or go after enemy submarines, the Washington Examiner reports.
"The miracle of the LCS didn't happen," said Paul Francis of the Government Accountability Office. "We are 26 ships into the contract and we still don't know if it can do its job."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was even more blunt.
"The process is completely broken. If you want this to stop, somebody needs to get fired."
The current fleet of eight ships have a near-zero chance of completing a 30-day mission without a critical failure, said Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of Operational Test and Evaluation.
And Sen. John McCain, described as a longtime critic of the program, continued to question why additional money should be spent on the program, Stars And Stripes reports.
"The taxpayers have paid for — and are still paying for — 26 ships that have demonstrated next-to-no combat capability," McCain, an Arizona Republican, is quoted.
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