Sunday, November 20, 2011
Want to kill a defense weapons program?
Fuhgeddaboutit! You can shoot them, poison them, dismember them, burn them and scatter the ashes across the country and they will still come back for more money. By way of example, Elizabeth Bumiller looks at the program that gave us that infamous Marine killer the V-22 Osprey.
As a joint Congressional committee appears paralyzed days from a deadline to agree on a plan to cut the nation’s deficit, the Pentagon remains vulnerable to forced reductions over the next decade that would slash its spending by $500 billion, on top of $450 billion in cuts already in the works — a total of more than 15 percent of its operating budget.Taking Sec. Def. Panetta for a test ride is just one of the many ways the services protect their pet projects. And project protection is why they keep so many excess Generals and Colonels in the Pentagon.
But as Mr. Panetta considers scaling back major weapons programs, the Osprey illustrates the challenges in downsizing the world’s most expensive military. The aircraft has survived after repeated safety problems during testing, years of delays, ballooning costs and tough questions about its utility.
Even Dick Cheney, when he was the defense secretary under the first President George Bush, could not kill it.
“Don’t bet against the Marines as budget warriors,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.
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