The Pentagon canceled Northrop Grumman’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor program amid accusations by Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, that the system’s design would not accomplish key military objectives.

To make sense of the termination, the Preventing Project Failure blog compares Department of Defense rhetoric with that of Northrop Grumman:

Despite differing views between vendor and customer, one thing is certain: the government wasted over a billion dollars before deciding this system didn’t meet requirements.

The Pentagon said it terminated the project for the “convenience of the government” and not because of problems with Northrop.