The Department of Defense (DOD) has proposed that the practices and policies of the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) be modified to reduce the time and cost of developing and fielding new weapon systems. To help focus deliberations on DOD'S proposal, you asked us to review DOT&E'S operations and organizational structure for overseeing operational testing. Specifically, you asked us to assess (1) DOT&E's efforts and their impact on the quality of operational testing and evaluation in DOD and (2) the strengths and weaknesses of the current organizational framework in DOD for operational testing. As part of our review, we conducted 13 case studies of the testing of individual weapon systems. (Our scope and methodology are described in app. I, and brief descriptions of the 13 weapon systems are provided in app. II.)

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation's (DOT&E) use of contractors. GAO found that: (1) DOT&E policies and procedures for managing contracts for operational test and evaluation (OT&E) support complied with existing guidelines; (2) DOT&E took measures that were consistent with regulations requiring agencies to guard against contractor conflicts of interest; (3) DOT&E use of the Institute for Defense Analyses as a contractor for OT&E support was permissible under federal regulations and appropriate, since the Institute was less likely than private contractors to have conflicts of interest; (4) of the $12.5 million DOT&E obligated to it during fiscal years 1987 through 1989, the Institute used about $2 million for 51 consultants and 2 subcontractors; (5) of those 51 consultants, 2 had been involved in overseeing programs that they subsequently performed operational test assessments on for DOT&E; and (6) in four instances, the Institute performed both acquisition and operational testing functions on the same weapon systems. GAO believes that disclosure of a consultant's prior work would be consistent with the regulation requiring disclosure of federally funded research and development centers' affairs.