Military Industrial Complex

Defense Reform Bill Marred by Lobbyists

Armand Biroonak — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:52:57 -0400

The Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act sponsored by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) was intended to improve the Pentagon’s acquisition process, fraught with nearly $300 billion in cost overruns on 95 major weapons systems. By establishing an independent overseer, improving organization and strengthening accountability to manage costs, this legislation was the first (refreshing) sign of defense reform. Yet, the latest efforts by the defense lobby have weakened the bill significantly.

Although the bill will not reach the Senate floor until next week, hints of a watered-down version are reported by Congressional Quarterly. According to CQ:

“The committee changed a provision that would establish a director for independent cost analysis, limiting his role to programs managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and excluding those managed by the military services, cutting his portfolio by about half. Also, under the bill, his estimates would not be verified by outside groups.”

With the remainder of oversight in the hands of the Pentagon, the chances of improving the acquisitions process are slim. For years the GAO has made recommendations to DOD, producing little success. Research and development costs have increased 40 percent from initial estimates, with average schedule delays of close to two years.

“The committee expanded the Pentagon’s ability to bypass a new requirement that programs include competitive prototyping. The original version allowed a waiver for “national security” considerations, but the committee added the option of a waiver if the cost of competitive prototyping is too high.”

Besides avoiding complete competition, the Pentagon’s ability to grant exemptions to programs will not control costs. Take the Missile Defense system—it was exempted from standard baselines and traditional oversight to allow for flexibility in development. What occurred were delays and skyrocketing costs at $10 billion annually, with nearly every missile system failing in testing. Furthermore, the language of what constitutes an exemption is so vague, there is a risk that it is applied to numerous programs.

And there is more:

“A third provision altered by the committee would change the bill’s ban on one company providing “systems engineering and technical assistance” for a weapons program while also being involved in the development or production of that weapon, a potential conflict of interest.”

This is a root cause of the failed acquisition process, contractors too often have a hand in every part of a program’s production, knowing that 1) in the absence of strict oversight, there is more incentive to continue program development than meeting cost and delivery targets; 2) lax testing and performance measures allow for even failed products to move forward from development to production.

The Acquisitions Reform Act will not solve every problem, but does lay the groundwork for institutional change in the future—but not in the bill’s current form. The defense lobby has been ready for this fight against reform, and if they get their way, the current system of astronomical waste and inefficiency will surely continue. The bill should be on the floor of the Senate by next week at the earliest, whether amendments are added to strengthen the bill remain to be seen.

CQ article by Josh Rogin, "Amendments May Delay Acquisitions Overhaul," 22 Apr. 2009.

Read my blog about the failures of Pentagon reform here.

The Cheney Legacy

Jeff Morris — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:15:26 -0400

For some time now, people have been wondering how the historical Presidential legacy of George W. Bush will read. That it will be terrible, is now almost universal in consensus. I'm now thinking how the legacy of the most authoritarian, abusive of power, secretive, Vice President in U.S. history should read also. I will never understand how so many questionable actions of Bush/Cheney went unchallenged for so long. I will never understand how the legality of so many of their actions weren't challenged by Congress, or in the courts, much sooner.

During the run up to the Iraq invasion, our nation and our news people must have been asleep or under the spell of post 9-11 induced opportunistic Patriotism. VP Cheney and his office were perhaps the biggest offenders in the cherry picking and manipulation of pre war intelligence, the exaggerated claims of dire threats, and the main authors of why Iraq posed such an imminent threat to the U.S. that a preemptive invasion was necessary for our National Security.

The sixteen words of yellow cake uranium from Niger, the bogus threat of the consequences coming back to us in the form of a mushroom cloud, and other phony exaggerated threats, were for the most part drafted by the VP and his office. In the end Bush/Cheney sold it to Congress and the American people and got their permission slip for the unnecessary invasion. Which brought nothing but death and destruction to a nation and people who had nothing to do with 9-11, and who never posed any real threat to the U.S.

Once the invasion started, VP Cheney then awarded hundreds of billions of dollars in no bid contracts to his old company (Halliburton) and its subsidiary Company KBR only. Talk about a vested interest in wanting to start the unnecessary war! Talk about a conflict of interest! Yet Congress, and sadly a good portion of the American public, didn't question this all very much. I still have a hard time wondering how this was legal. Five and a half years later we now see how it's cost us as a nation dearly. In troop deaths, in a record deficit, in a badly damaged image around the World....

If you examine the worst offenses of this Bush/Cheney administration ( exaggerated threats in the run up to the Iraq invasion ,Torture policies, Guantanamo Bay, exposure of an undercover CIA agents identity, NSA warrant less spying program, Military Commissions act, Patriot Act.... )they seem to have a common thread. Follow the trail back and they all lead to the same place. VP Cheney and his office. The man is a War Criminal, War Profiteer....yet received 5 different deferments during the Viet Nam War, when it was his turn to step up to the plate and serve his Country. A draft dodger, and perhaps the loudest voice in favor of sending yours and my kids, grand kids... off for a third, fourth... tour of duty in his unnecessary Iraq oil War.

On JFK's Inauguration in Jan. 1961, outgoing Pres Eisenhower gave a final speech. He warned us of a possible coming threat to the U.S. He called that threat "The Military Industrial Complex" When our Military and Corporate Giants march America, hand in hand, into an unnecessary War for Big Business and Corporate Profits. Sadly, 42 yr later Eisenhower's warning became fulfilled prophecy with the 2003 unnecessary invasion of Iraq.

Sometimes I think I know why the Republicans at the top picked Bush back in 2000 to be their Presidential nominee. They needed someone who's bulb was dim enough to wake up every morning, look himself in the mirror, and say "I'm the President Of The United States". Also someone dumb enough to never figure it out that he isn't the one really calling the shots. Our real "shadow President" Darth Cheney called the shots, and got everything he wanted! Including hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money siphoned from the U.S. Treasury and into the coffers of his old Company!

Jeff Morris-Saugerties, N.Y.- DeJaVu57

Progressive: Another Word For Democrat!

Timothy Gatto — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:03:17 -0400

For quite a while I have been critically looking at what I’ve been writing. It hasn’t been grammar and punctuation that have concerned me; it has been the style, the content and the political meaning which is part and parcel of what a political writer does when writing. Lately I have been wondering exactly where I stand politically. Apparently others have also wondered where I stand politically, as can be readily discerned by the number of so-called ‘progressive” sites that have decided I should no longer have the privilege of posting my articles on their sites.

This causes me to reflect on what it is that I write that could be so inflammatory? Do I write about issues that Americans shouldn’t be exposed to? Is my writing so radical that it should not appear in print? Have I called for revolution or violence? Have I pandered to the right? Each day I wrestle with why I am getting censored from sites that supposedly cater to the left of center, sites that call for a greater transparency in government, sites that call for an end to US imperialism, and sites that call for truth, I wonder what it is that I write that causes me to be banned from these sites?

Therein lays the rub. Do sites that claim to be progressive actually call for the truth, or do they call for opinions that are anti-republican, anti-Neo-Con and anti-Bush? Why was I banned from one of the largest progressive sites in America when I called into question the motives and legality of the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas? http://liberalpro.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-is-follow-up-on-flds-raid.h... . What was so terribly disconcerting in that article that would warrant getting my posting privileges on Democratic Underground revoked? Was it because I suggested that the government, in this case the CPS in Texas, had fabricated the initial phone call from one of the girls being held? Was it because I stated that the Constitution should be applied to all that the government does? Was it because even though I stated that the FDLS and its members should be investigated if they did indeed sexually molest under age women, that the authorities must still follow the law in prosecuting their crimes?

Whatever it was that I did to be thrown off that site; it must have been particularly egregious. I had only just joined the site as a member, but before that, over forty of my articles had been posted to that site by its own members in the last year. Somehow, I don’t think that the content of that last article was the reason that my membership was revoked. I’m starting to see a pattern here. What I’m seeing I really don’t like, in fact, if I were the type of person that was easily intimidated, I might quit writing altogether.

I’m starting to realize that there is not too much difference between the progressive media and the right. The truth is. that as long as you stay in the confines of their arbitrary belief system, as long as you write about what everyone else on these sites writes about, you are accepted. It’s when you start to question the two-party system in this country or the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza, or decry the fact that the military industrial complex funds the two Democratic candidates, now that is when you run into trouble.

The lesson that I am learning is that as long as you play nice, as long as you stay within the confines of the DNC’s propaganda machine, as long as you don’t cause too much of a ruckus, then you may continue to write for all of the so-called “Progressive Sites”. This is exactly the same as national politics. We have already seen that those politicians that accepted the status quo and made sure that they didn’t say anything too radical were allowed to debate and receive coverage from the mainstream media. It appears that the same holds true for the internet’s political websites. Progressive is just another word for Democrat. If Hillary Clinton could stand and call herself a progressive, I should have known then that it was time to move on.

There are still sites that carry my writing. There are still sites on the internet that allow for a broad range of political views. There are still sites that don’t cater to the Democrats and everything they stand for. As for this writer, getting banned from the largest, best funded sites, tells me that if they have to ban me or revoke my privileges, it only proves to me that what I’m writing must be important enough for them to try to stop me from writing. If I were not a threat to them, they wouldn’t have banned me.

That’s the way I see it.