US weapons systems inefficient: Report

According to a new report the costs of the Pentagon’s major weapons systems have risen nearly half a trillion dollars over their initial estimation.

The report by the US Government Accountability Office has also found that the Pentagon’s 80 programs have average schedule delays of more than two years.

According to the Washington Post, the GAO report was presented during a congressional hearing Wednesday in which both Republican and Democratic senators criticized the continued cost overruns, waste of money and recourses, high rate of contract cancelations and lack of accountability in the weapons systems.

Sen. John McCain listed a series of failed programs, including the fleet of presidential helicopters, saying they were examples of “really unacceptable cost overruns in the past, and a failure to get a lot of it still under control.”

For decades, Congress and the Pentagon have struggled, with little success, to create a more efficient system for buying weapons.

Rep. Mac Thornberry told the Post: “The US is going to have flat defense budgets as far as the eye can see, and the problems the US is trying to deal with around the world are not flat.”