Did the Army favor Raytheon in anti-RPG bid?

Video obtained by NBC News shows that Raytheon’s system was not tested under the most trying of conditions.  It was mounted on a test stand, not on a moving vehicle.

By contrast, a different Pentagon division, the Office of Force Transformation (OFT) tested a competing Israeli system — called Trophy — and found it at least 98 percent effective against RPGs in near-battlefield conditions.

A number of senior Army officials were supposed to attend those March 2006 tests but canceled.

In a statement, the Army said it does “not know who was invited, who declined to attend, and why they did or did not attend the demo.”

But an e-mail obtained by NBC News provides some insight. In it, a senior Army official writes that the Army “just awarded a contract to Raytheon” and wanted to “focus all efforts toward supporting the fielding of the Raytheon ... solution.” Accordingly, the official went on to say, “I don’t want anyone to think I’m supporting [Trophy].”

Nevertheless, OFT officials were so impressed with Trophy’s performance that they decided to buy several systems — which cost $300,000-$400,000 each — for battlefield trials on Stryker armored vehicles in Iraq next year. That plan was eventually scuttled by the Army.

The selection team
In May, a technical team was chosen and given the task of evaluating competing RPG defense systems. But here again, Raytheon had a leg up.

Myers: Do you know how many of the 21-person technical team worked for Raytheon?

Kotchman: To the best of my knowledge, none. 

Army documents obtained by NBC News, however, reveal that nine of the 21 technical experts — as well as all the administrative personnel — were from Raytheon. The team ultimately concluded that of the seven RPG defense systems examined, Raytheon’s was “the clear winner.”

Raytheon’s “Quick Kill” solution — which the Army concedes will not be fielded before 2011 at the earliest — won out over Trophy, the Israeli system championed by the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation.

Myers: It appears as though Raytheon was allowed to select itself.

Kotchman: I don’t know that to be a fact, and so I really can't comment on it.

The Army later told NBC News that, its own document notwithstanding, the technical team actually consisted of 30 people plus two administrative assistants and that a total of eight people were from Raytheon.

“That sure doesn't look like an objective panel to me,” says Phil Coyle, a former principal adviser to the secretary of defense on weapons testing and evaluation who is now with the Center for Defense Information. “It just doesn't pass the ho-ho test when you have that many people from one company on the selection panel and then that company is the one that's chosen.”

Myers: Pentagon officials we spoke to said that the Army, quote, cooked the books on this.

Kotchman: I don’t know the basis of their assertion that the books were cooked and so ... I can’t confirm that.

Recently, the Senate entered the fray and in what congressional officials say was a slap at the Army, ordered Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to put together a new, independent evaluation of all RPG defense systems, foreign and domestic.

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