Weapons programs exceeding their budget is nothing new - but the scale of this is pretty amazing nonetheless.
Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages.
"Scathing", "dozens" and "years behind" are all quite troubling - but I'd say that "none" is perhaps the most worrisome word in that overview of the GAO report. Remember, as the Republicans tell us, that's "your money" - and of course it's also your security.
Posted by armand at April 1, 2008 09:38 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Military Affairs