I think that the terms
- Light Air Support (LAS), versus
- Light Attack and Armed Recon (LAAR)
get mixed up a lot in this connection. Congress gave the LAS contract to Embraer for a batch of Tucanos, hotly contested by Beechcraft; while the LAAR program was never funded to begin with. The aircraft are similar platforms, but with different guns and other stuff.
wiki- LAAR vs LAS
wiki- LAARs
LAARs Gov't contract listing