Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/wheeler06222006.html

In a stunning new report on the F-22, GAO recommends no further funding for the aircraft until DOD provides a relevant justification. GAO also points out that the Air Force’s “cost saving” plan for a “multiyear procurement” will actually cost additional money. Meanwhile, as the Senate has been debating the 2007 defense budget, Lockheed has been giving Capitol Hill advice and direction – most welcome in Senator Chambliss’ office - on how it should be legislating on the F-22.

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Finally, the recommendation on p. 7 reads,

”…we recommend that Secretary of Defense delay further investments in F-22A procurement and modernization until completes a comprehensive business case analysis that adequately considers alternatives, justifies the need for further investments, and reconciles the numbers of F-22As that are needed (i.e. based on credible current and future threats and considering other alternative approaches) as well as affordable and sustainable (i.e., based on current and expected DOD resource levels).”

GAO management would be horrified at my more stark characterization, but what this report is really saying is that

* DOD is unable to justify more F-22s;

* There is no current or future threat to warrant them, and

* They not affordable.

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Finally, GAO finds that the F-22 fails to technically qualify for the multiyear procurement plan the Air Force and Lockheed seek. On p. 5, GAO evaluates each of the six criteria and finds that the program fails on five. On the last criteria, whether the program will “promote the national security of the United States,” GAO offers the most devastating comment of the entire report, “No observation.” Put simply, given a chance to offer an assessment whether the F-22 – at any cost – would help protect America, GAO chose to pass. The very normal thing for GAO to do would be to quote what DOD or the Air Force asserts and leave it at that. In this case, however, GAO tacitly declined, implying – at least to this former GAO evaluator – that the agency could not stomach simply regurgitating official pabulum.

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Lockheed drafted an “F-22A WP Multiyear” information sheet to lobby in favor of the multiyear procurement plan. The sheet has been widely circulated on Capitol Hill; it is electronically dated (June 12, 2006).

Only days later some Lockheed's same language miraculously appeared in an amendment to be introduced by Senator Saxby Chambliss, R. – GA, who represents the F-22’s final assembly plant in Marietta, GA. This amendment is electronically dated June 15, 2006.
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Lockheed is a crime scene - Chambliss is a gangster