F-35 News. Is the USMC walking back the IOC date?

via National Defense.

Marine officials recently have somewhat softened their stance on a July IOC, suggesting that it is not a hard deadline.

“We won't declare IOC unless we meet all of our targets,” Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for aviation told the Senate Armed Services Committee March 25.

The F-35B with the current software provides “tremendous capability that we don't have today,” Davis insisted. “I have no fusion in the airplanes I operate today.” The pilots who fly it today “love the F-35B and they wouldn't go back to their original platforms.”
On the software, Davis said he would withhold judgment for now. If the squadron is not ready to declare IOC, he said, the Marine Corps will respect that. “The decision to declare IOC will be event-based and conditions-based, based on us achieving what we have to do to deliver a combat capability to our Marines,” he said. “If conditions are met, I will make a recommendation to [Commandant] General Dunford that we declare our IOC.”

You're getting tired of me saying this, but I seriously wonder why these reporters (and Sandra Erwin is good) keep missing the highlights of the news that's been given to them.

The USMC is giving itself room to back off the IOC date that was once seemingly written in blood.  

While I still believe that the Marine Corps' rush to get this plane into service has to do with the procurement trainwreck and attempting to clear the tracks so that they can get on to the rest of the portfolio, I can't help but feel that those plans are doomed.