Mr. Paige is right to say that a mandate is bad for DoD while Ada is not.

Why mandate it?  Why not just make it the easiest, least expensive, most
cost effective, quickest and best supported solution?

Instead of saying "If I use powerbuilder, it will be done in 2 weeks,"
people will be saying, "If I use Ada95, I can get someone else to do part,
another part is already done, and the other part will only take a week."

The mandate is not required to do that.  I might suggest a mandate on
interfaces.  You can write your code in assembly if you like, as long as it
works and you provide an Ada interface to it.

Although the above mentioned scenario is not automatic.  It will take a
serious shift in the DoD software business process.

Chad