Billions spent, warfighters wait: Inside the Pentagon’s broken buying system and the plan to fix it

The Army’s top tech officer warns that bureaucracy is fueling waste as the Pentagon keeps buying obsolete weapons unfit for today's fast-changing battlefield.

Miller pointed to roadside bombs, or IEDs, which devastated troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a turning point. "There were lots of reports that if a Humvee rolled over an IED, it just was not a good situation for soldiers," he said.

Still, the Army continued buying Humvees, even as it rushed to field more survivable vehicles like MRAPs and Strykers. That, Miller said, highlights the larger issue: not a single acquisition failure, but a systemwide problem in how the military does business.