What do you expect?
The government puts out a trough full of money with a "Free Cash" sign on it and is surprised when it gets overwhelmed with snouts. I am so surprised.
The problem with this scheme was that you were going to need an army of bureaucrats to ensure that the money was spent on just ripping and replacing exactly what was necessary to rip and replace and not upgrading the rest of the equipment, the break room and whatever else needs a paint job. The 'government is paying' is also not an incentive for cutthroat price competition.
This is the price of vanity. The allocated sum could have easily overseen the monitoring of this rouge equipment for hidden Chinese backdoors or information leaks to PRC Central but it was more important to be seen to be sticking it to them so we (the Taxpayer) will end up paying the price. As usual. (...or more likely, "just stick it on the tab").
One bright spot in all of this is that the US government doesn't have organizations like Capita like you do in the UK to perform its administrative functions. A properly organized initiative like this in the UK would probably result in a few hundred million being paid out and the rest going to 'administration'.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
