Inquiry launched into bomb-mapping program

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. House committee launched an inquiry into allegations the Army mishandled requests for software to help troops beat roadside bombs in Afghanistan.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, called for an investigation into the matter last week, U-T San Diego reported.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested Defense Secretary Leon Panetta provide five sets of documents related to the Army Test and Evaluation Command's reports on Palantir, commercial software that enables troops to map previous bomb attacks for patterns.

Hunter alleged the Pentagon favored its in-house software over Palantir, despite urgent insistence from troops who said Palantir yielded better results.

The letter to Panetta, sent Wednesday, notes the Army spent $2.3 billion to field the Distributed Common Ground System-Army, their answer to Palantir.

"Reports indicate, however, that DCGS-A is 'unable to perform simple analytical tasks,'" the letter said. "More specifically, users have expressed that DCGS-A does 'not provide intuitive capabilities to see the relationships between a wide variety of disparate sets of information.'"

The committee demanded the documents by Aug. 15. In the meantime, the Army said it has launched its own internal investigation.