Nation IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Submarine Program Called Mismanaged

The Navy is mismanaging a key part of its Seawolf attack submarine program, and, as a result, may spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a weapons system that “may never work,” government investigators said. A report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the Navy is not adequately testing and evaluating the weapons system’s computer software in the early stages of its development. “This significantly increases the risk that design flaws and errors will not be detected until very late in system development, when they will be considerably more difficult and expensive to correct,” the agency’s report said. In a statement accompanying the report, the Defense Department strongly disagreed, saying that the Navy was using “sound and prudent” approaches to managing the program.