The 10-year, $9.3 billion project has not met its two strategic goals: to provide information superiority and to foster innovation via interoperability and shared services, according to the GAO.

Although the Navy developed a performance plan in 2000 to measure and report on progress toward these goals, it did not implement the plan, the GAO said. In fact, according to the agency, the Navy has met only three of 20 performance targets (15 percent) associated with the program's goals and nine related performance categories.

"By not implementing its performance plan, the Navy has invested, and risks continuing to invest heavily, in a program that is not subject to effective performance management and has yet to produce expected results," according to the report.

The Navy awarded the NMCI services contract to Electronic Data Systems in October 2000. The contract calls for EDS to replace thousands of independent networks, applications and other hardware and software with a single intranet along with associated desktop, server and infrastructure assets and services for Navy and Marine Corps customers, the GAO said.

In addition, the NMCI's three main customer groups -- end users, commanders and network operators -- showed varying levels of satisfaction with the program.