Among the losers in the Senate Appropriations Committee version of the fiscal 2011 military spending bill is WIN-T, for which Senate appropriators say the Army asked for $25 million too much to spend in the coming fiscal year. The committee voted Sept. 16 to approve their version of the Defense Department's fiscal 2011 spending bill

In a report accompanying the bill, Senate appropriators directed the Army to trim WIN-T's nearly $421.8 million budget request for fiscal 2011 (which starts Oct. 1) down to $396.8 million. The project, formally called Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, aims to bring high-bandwidth, mobile, two-way satellite communications and ad hoc mesh radio connectivity to battlefield commanders. The prime contractor is General Dynamics.

WIN-T recently came under criticism by DoD Director of Operational Test and Evaluation in a June 30 memo, in which he cited WIN-T as an example of unreliability. Testing in June 2010 revealed that mean time between essential functional failure--a key metric--did not meet requirements, Gilmore wrote.

The committee's version of the spending bill now faces action by the full Senate and eventual reconciliation with a House version--although that chamber's appropriations committee has yet to act on its fiscal 2011 Defense spending bill.

Congressional leaders have said rather than readying for presidential signature all 12 appropriations bills necessary to keep the government funded come Oct. 1, they will instead present President Obama with a continuing resolution, under which current year spending levels are generally extended for a while into the next fiscal year.

In related news, Senate appropriators also said in their report that they approve a request by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for $287.6 million for fiscal 2011 projects and $226.9 million to continue projects started during fiscal 2010. In addition, Senate appropriators said DARPA should have $40 million to spend on a wide area surveillance effort, money originally requested for the Joined IED Defeat Organization.

Appropriators expressed unhappiness with JIEDDO in the report, stating that the JIEDO budget is "being used to cover unrequested and unjustified items which either are of interest to senior leaders or make up for shortfalls in amounts requested by the services." JIEDDO has come under criticism almost from its inception in 2006. Even its commander, Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, has acknowledged problems. "We frequently end up with things that don't necessarily support our soldiers," Oates said while speaking before an industry audience May 11 during the annual Joint Warfighting Conference in Virginia Beach, Va.

For more:
- go to the THOMAS page of the Senate Appropriations Committee approved bill (S. 3800), or go directly to the report (.pdf)
- download Michael Gilmore's June 2010 memo (.pdf)

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