Arms Fiascoes Lead to Alarm Inside Pentagon -NYT

[Rose Siding]

Nine years ago, the Navy set out to build a new guided missile for its 21st-century ships. Fiascoes followed. In a test firing, the missile melted its on-board guidance system. "Incredibly," an Army review said, "the Navy ruled the test a success."

Recently, the Navy rewrote the contract and put out another one, with little to show for the money it already spent. The bill has come to almost $400 million, five times the original budget.

Such stories may seem old hat. But after years of failing to control cost overruns, the most powerful officials at the Pentagon are becoming increasingly alarmed that the machinery for building weapons is breaking down under its own weight.
...
The Pentagon has more than 80 major new weapons systems under development, which is "a lot more programs than we can afford," a senior Air Force official, Blaise J. Durante, said. Their combined cost, already $300 billion over budget, is $1.47 trillion and climbing.

http://nytimes.com/2005/06/08/business/08weapons.html?hp&ex=1118203200&en=23b07cfc077fecf8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[AuntiBush]

1. Why does this not surprise me... and it should!

We really need a major overhaul, huh. Thanks for the FYI.

Good post!

[tk2kewl]

2. just wait and see how fucked our military becomes wen the economy crashes

qnd the dollar falls through the floor.

[AuntiBush]

3. Really. Stinkin' really!

[UpInArms]

4. I wonder where that missing $2.3 Trillion is

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

excerpt:

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.

"The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery.

He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.

...more...

[punpirate]

5. Here's one of my many answers to explain...

... that sort of accounting error. In the late `80s, Air Force auditors went to Northrop, the prime contractor for the development of the B-2 bomber, to check how the money was being spent. At that time, production had not begun, and the company was still doing R&D. That process enabled the shifting of funds throughout the company for the myriad ongoing tasks required.

Northrop's books were in such a mess (most likely intentionally) that the Air Force auditors finally said, "we give up--wipe the books clean and start over."

That was, in the history of B-2 development, the third time Air Force auditors had told Northrop to start over their accounting.

By law, Northrop should have been considered as a contractor attempting to deceive the government and should have been barred from receiving future contracts (law at that time, I think, provided for review after a 5-year suspension period). However, there were only a few prime contractors qualified to take on that contract--and they were busy with other defense work. If the Pentagon had upheld the law, they wouldn't have gotten their bomber, or at least not without long delays.

The prime contractors to the government know this and use it. Moreover, further consolidation of that industry makes it even less likely for the government to punish a contractor for wrongdoing.

Cheers.

[Spinzonner]

6. And at that point

when does the tail start wagging the dog ?

If it hasn't already.

[punpirate]

8. That's been going on for over fifty years...

... or at least since the industry discovered cost overruns. :)

One of the interesting things I found a while back is that Lockheed-Martin has slightly more than 100 divisions, wholly-owned subsidiaries, etc., in thirty-eight states.

That means that just one corporate defense contractor has the ability to threaten as many as 100 Congress critters and 76 Senators with losing jobs in their districts or states whenever there's a suggestion that the defense budget should be cut, or when the clamps should be applied to the manufacturers and/or the Pentagon.

Virtually all of the Pentagon's materiel budget is divided among 300 or so top contractors. Think of what the total political power is of those 300 firms, with regard to the most primary local issue in this country--jobs.

Cheers.

[Moderator]

11. UpInArms

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[saigon68]

7. Its a good thing all seniors have prescription drugs in amerika

Its also good--- there are no homeless veterans or hungry children in amerika </sarcasm>

[DeepModem Mom]

9. kick

[hang a left]

10. kick