Certainly life cycle costing is an estimating process. But the mismatch that was occurring in all of this was that, as the decisions seemed to be taking the government closer to the actual acquisition of the F-35 and the announcement in 2010 of the intention to acquire the F-35, it would be important to make sure that the decision was based on having full life cycle costing, based on the best information available at the time.
On April 26th, 2012. See this statement in context.