Pentagon to Include Contingency Contracting Procedures Into War Plans

Keeping in line with his comments about streamlining the wartime contracting and acquisition process, Ashton Carter, the DoD's weapons czar today said the Pentagon is working to integrate steps to buy weapons quickly into the its war plans.

So called, “contingency contracting" or contracting that calls for rapid buys of equipment and services to meet immediate and unexpected wartime needs "is going to be a part of our military operations as far as the eye can see," Carter told The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

This means that military officials must know how to properly implement these buys from now on rather than risking the mismanagement of emergency contracts or wasting time figuring out how to get around a cumbersome acquisition process.

"As part of our war plans, as part of our staffing plans, as part of our training plans, we are building contingency operations into them at all levels, from commanders all the way down," said Carter.

All of this came at the same hearing where Carter said that the Pentagon must institutionalize steps for quickly buying and deploying new gear, calling the current annual budgeting process a relic of the Cold War that isn't well suited to fighting wars.