This morning, Pentagon acquisitions czar John Young addressed a group of us at the Defense Writers Group breakfast in D.C. Although he refused to answer questions related to the presidential transition, he was pretty relaxed and open on most other topics. Particularly when it came to the topic of the problem with acquisitions.

Although questions were mostly focused on screw-ups in Air Force acquisition (space programs, fixed wing assets, etc.), Young was careful to say his criticisms were not service-specific. He said the cancelled Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) is a perfect example. At some point, he asked, is a community so anxious to move a program forward that they did all the wrong things? The ARH "was never going to cost $200 million in R&D" to transform it into an essentially glorified Kiowa OH-58D. "Did they deceive themselves? Set requirements too high? Budgets too low? Were schedules to optimistic?" It was a combination of all those elements, Young said. "There's no question that the Army and industry came up short in that program."

As far as the Air Force is concerned, high profile acquisition failures like CSAR-X and the tanker are the exception, Young claimed. "There are many programs managed very well every day in the Air Force." He said he's been looking at root causes for acquisition problems within the Air Force, but that he can't point to one factor specifically. Young said some of the practices and cultures that evolved during Darleen Druyun's tenure are still present. "There are lingering elements of the culture that do have to be changed," he said. "My frustration is that the Air Force has begun the learning process," but it wasn't enough to fix the issues on CSAR-X. "To postpone that decision until October was not optimal."

Young said he wouldn't give any of the services even a B grade for acquisition management, although he later clarified and said that was an overall assessment and on select programs he'd give an A+. "I can go to each service and point to issues ... but we'd be ignoring the 60 to 70% of the programs that work every day."