|
 |
 |
|
Official: JLTV was once on pace to cost $800,000 per vehicle
-
12/08/11 03:14 PM ET
Before Marine Corps leaders told their Army counterparts big changes were needed for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, one Pentagon estimate showed each model might cost $800,000.
Senior service officials previously said each unit was once on pace to cost $600,000.
During a forum Wednesday in Washington, Assistant Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford said some cost projections were as high as $800,000 for each vehicle.
Due to that massive cost estimate, and the projected weight of the vehicle, the JLTV effort nearly collapsed. Senate appropriators even proposed killing it, but it now appears likely to survive.
The result is a program that is expected to produce vehicles that will cost around $300,000 each. Dunford said some cost projections are as low as $240,000 per vehicle.
Asked about the revelation of the $800,000 per-truck cost, Winslow Wheeler, a former congressional Defense aide, told The Hill: “Holy [expletive]!”
“More seriously, this kind of behavior and advocacy of this kind of program explains why no one, except his fellow travelers, believes [Defense] Secretary [Leon] Panetta’s hysterical rhetoric that cutting the DOD budget to a level that would impede this kind of behavior is some sort of doomsday,” Wheeler, now an analyst at the Center for Defense Information, wrote in an email. “Doomsday for this behavior, perhaps.”
