How did they even get them off the ground?
Posted on 06/05/2008 10:44:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
-- snip --
Defense Secretary Gates has publicly identified a number of problems recently with the Air Force, including last year's accidental flight of nuclear weapons on a B-52 bomber, and Moseley's ties to contract problems over the Air Force Thunderbird air show. He was later exonerated by Wynne, according to an April report by the Reuters news agency.
Check AF Times site....the base IG at Nellis said seven contracts violated the law...from Jun 2003 to December 2005 (almost three years ago that the last occurred). $50 million in contract costs involved. In one case....the folks involved were rigging the entire deal for fair competition by sliding the money to their favorite vendor....through an Alaska Native Corporation. For those who haven’t observed this Alaska Native game....there are a couple of these...”funnels”....which are rigged up for DOD, Homeland Security, and NGA. The government rigged up the game so it looks like the Indians are running the corporations...but they really aren’t, and then some of these Air Force managers think that they can use the Alaska Native “funnel” to help unfairly arrange contracts to special friends. There are millions which run this way every month....all perfectly legal....and created by our friends in Alaska (Senator Ted Stevens), who is currently is under investigation for his own problems.
ping
Q: What’s the difference between the Air Force and the Coast Guard?
A: The Coast Guard supports DoD in time of war...
That’s a lot deeper than initially reported. Sounds like these guys had any number of things to be fired over.
In B-52's.
In Thunderbird formation performing Thundebird acrobatics.
You shoulda seen it! :-)
You think it’s about the Thunderbirds?
Nah. I would spell the issue “N-U-K-E-S”
Bet a cold adult beverage that the real reason is the same one that got SecArmy canned a few years ago: going behind OSD’s back to lobby Congress for more stuff. (Crusader for the Army, F22s for the Air Force)
How did they even get them off the ground?
Being asked to resign at that level is the equivalent of being asked to leave Hell's Kitchen.
The ol’ 8A racket....
They had a similar problem about 15 years ago, only with minority owned companies. Congress passed a law giving minority owned businesses an advantage in government contracts. Some companies grabbed street people and made them CEOs of front companies just to get the contracts. Sixty Minutes did a segment on it.
Gates thought Airforce was/were/is underutilizing their drone capability and were basically not doing enough for the soldiers and marines in Iraq. And almost anyone who looks into the matter will very likely agree with Gates.
The Airforce wants $400,000,000.00 flying Barbaros and winged Big Browns for their future mythic “Knight of the Sky” Heros. The Airforce wants to re-fight World War II, and keeps buying better fighters and bombers to re-win that war.
LOL. That’s the best one I’ve heard in a while.
“Due to the fiasco at Minot AFB?”
Minot was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This has been a long time in coming, with lots of prior skirmishes... USAF’s attempt to hog all UCAV’s, the dispute over F-22 numbers, shipping the nuke detonators to Taiwan. But the big elephant in the room has been USAF’s insistence on focusing on Russia and China instead of the current wars. Gates all but accused on blue general officer of insubordination on the issue. There’s rumors that applause could be heard from the other three branches in the Pentagon today.
If it's about Iran, why do they need a cover story?
As I recall, GEN Shinseki was canned because he publicly disagreed with Rumsfeld on the number of troops to use to take, hold, and pacify Iraq.
Looks like Shinseki was right, too. Oops.
People were already canned over the Minot nuke problems (although apparently the problems persist - the same wing just failed another inspection, that included SPs who didn’t know their areas of responsibility or who were distracting themselves with video games on their cell phones).
For example, TRACOR-Flight Systems was notorious for using ‘finger puppets’ to land massive contracts in the early 80s. Most defense contracts have done this.
Nothing new.
Except the corrupt brass is finally getting their hands slapped. (forced retirement with full bennis is not punishment)
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