IT systems: the bane of pentagon procurement.

The Defense Department's track record of buying new information technology systems has been abysmal, grumbled Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., during a recent hearing.

The usual grievances leveled by lawmakers and other critics: Defense Department information systems take years longer than expected to field, run hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, and end up being canceled without any benefit to the government.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was visibly angry when she chided Pentagon acquisitions chief Frank Kendall. "You're terrible at it, just terrible at it," she said of defense IT procurement. "I would use an unladylike term about how bad the Department of Defense is at acquiring IT, but I don't want to do that as a United States senator."

While the problems are well known, the Pentagon...