{"id":1263,"date":"2013-03-28T12:49:17","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T18:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1263"},"modified":"2013-03-28T12:49:17","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T18:49:17","slug":"congress-saves-busted-380-million-missile-program-the-pentagon-wont-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/congress-saves-busted-380-million-missile-program-the-pentagon-wont-buy\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Saves Busted $380 Million Missile Program the Pentagon Won’t Buy"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dana Leibelson, Mother Jones
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

Conservatives are throwing a\u00a0hissy fit<\/a>\u00a0about a few hundred thousand dollars spent on a scientific study about duck sex, but over at\u00a0the Pentagon, Congress is\u00a0spending $380 million on a\u00a0missile program<\/a>\u00a0that has no funding authorization, doesn’t work, and the Department of Defense doesn’t plan on buying. So why are we still paying for it? Because Germany and Italy are making the US feel awkward, and when you back out of a defense contract, you have to sell your first-born child.\u00a0Also, jobs.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS)<\/a>, contracted to Lockheed Martin, is a joint project with Italy and Germany intended to produce a weapon\u00a0that will intercept ballistic missiles.\u00a0If you read Lockheed Martin’s website, MEADS\u00a0sounds really cool. This “hit-to-kill” missile will “defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft, [and provide] full 360-degree engagement.”\u00a0Woah! (Shhh,\u00a0forget about the fact that Lockheed Martin’s program is basically a\u00a0duplicate of the “Patriot” missile program<\/a>\u00a0that the US is already paying for. This one sounds cooler, okay?)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, according to the\u00a0Office of Secretary of Defense<\/a>, MEADS has had serious technical, management, schedule, and cost problems since it was introduced in the mid-1990’s” and has been unable to “meet schedule and cost targets.” The Department of Defense decided in\u00a02011<\/a>\u00a0it didn’t want the system because it\u00a0couldn’t afford to pay for two missile programs<\/a>, and it was not helping US national security. For once, Congress actually agrees: Last week, an amendment proposed by\u00a0Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)\u00a0<\/a>that stripped funding from this “missile to nowhere”\u00a0passed\u00a094-5<\/a>\u00a0with blinding bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

That didn’t last long: Congress then passed a “stop-gap spending measure<\/a>” that said that the\u00a0$380 million\u00a0needed\u00a0to be used to complete the project, not pay termination fees. (According to\u00a0Politico Pro<\/em>, Sen. Ayotte\u00a0has placed\u00a0a hold on a top Pentagon acquisitions nominee until the Pentagon explains why it isn’t scrapping the program.)<\/p>\n

As Sen.\u00a0Dick Durbin (D-IL),\u00a0chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee,\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0on March 19, “The cost to finish the development of this program is almost exactly the same as the cost to unilaterally terminate it.” According to DoD Buzz, last year, those fees were at least\u00a0$800 million<\/a>, although\u00a0no official number<\/a>\u00a0has been released.\u00a0Sean Kennedy of\u00a0Citizens Against Government Waste<\/a>\u00a0argues that the best way to get out of this sticky scenario is for the “US\u00a0to negotiate an agreement with its allies to collectively withdraw from the MEADS contract.”<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Germany and Italy seem dead-set on the program, and have been guilt-tripping the US big-time, sending\u00a0letters<\/a>\u00a0that say things like:\u00a0“A final decision by the US\u00a0Government to prohibit further funding for MEADS at this advanced stage would lead to a significant loss of technology for which we have commonly worked so hard. It would also be perceived as a serious setback for transatlantic cooperation in general.”<\/p>\n

But even if Europe wasn’t a factor, as Michael Hoffman of\u00a0DoD Buzz<\/em><\/a>\u00a0notes, the program was probably saved because it provides jobs in Sen. Chuck\u00a0Schumer’s\u00a0district in New York.Schumer lobbied Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid\u00a0(D-Nev.) to keep funding the program.<\/p>\n

Lockheed Martin certainly isn’t upset about the US paying to complete the program. According to\u00a0Reuters<\/em><\/a>, “Lockheed and the MEADS consortium [are planning] a fourth quarter 2013 flight test to prove the MEADS missile defense system can intercept a ballistic missile.”<\/p>\n

Ben Freeman, Ph.D, an investigator for the Project On Government Oversight, where I used to work, tells\u00a0Mother Jones<\/em>\u00a0that “my understanding is that we’ll save money by terminating now… The program has had years to do “proof of concept,” and nothing has been proven. It’s time to cut our losses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dana Leibelson, Mother Jones click here for original article Conservatives are throwing a\u00a0hissy fit\u00a0about a few hundred thousand dollars spent on a scientific study about duck sex, but over at\u00a0the Pentagon, Congress is\u00a0spending $380 million on a\u00a0missile program\u00a0that has no funding authorization, doesn’t work, and the Department of Defense doesn’t plan on buying. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[166,165],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-defense-budget","tag-missile-defense"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t