My analysis of DOD's latest “30 year” (not really) Aviation Plan is running at Time's Battleland Blog at http://battleland.blogs.time.
Readers who get to the very end of this e-mail will note a change in my signature block. The change is also announced in a new press release from POGO at http://www.pogo.org/press-
Battleland.Blogs.Time.com
May 1, 2012
PROCUREMENT
The Pentagon's Million-Dollar Aviation Plan
By WINSLOW WHEELER
The Pentagon’s new, high-flying 30-year aircraft-buying blueprint – the Annual Aviation Inventory and Funding Plan Fiscal Years (FY) 2013-2042 – makes for depressing reading.
No, not because it predicts the loss of U.S. air superiority — its verbiage on that score is blithely reassuring—but because it evidences the Defense Department’s persistent refusal to acknowledge the overriding and fundamental air power issues. Bottom line — America’s combat aviation inventory and our air combat capability are:
– Decaying.
– Growing smaller and older.
– Becoming ever more costly.
The document starts out with wonkish assurances that the 30-year plan is fully consistent with the latest “strategic guidance” from the White House and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and it works hard to convince readers that all is well.
Phi Beta Iota: We cannot say it any plainer: any flag officer, any senior executive service officer now serving and putting up with all this fraud, waste, and abuse, LACKS INTEGRITY. From the Secretary of Defense to the Service Chiefs to the various “leaders” (more like over-promoted clerks), the Department of Defense sets the gold standard for fraud, waste, and abuse. They do no favors to those who die for their country–the infantry–both Army and Marine Corps–just 4% of the force–takes 80% of the casualties and receives 1% of the total budget. Hence, we must conclude that the persistence of this lack of integrity across the board among the Pentagon seniors is DESIRED by a Congress and a White House that themselves LACK INTEGRITY. It may be time to re-do Title 50 and Title 150–but first we have to find an honest Congress and an honest President. If General Flynn keeps his integrity as D/DIA, and perhaps finds a wing-man or two, then the first thing DIA could do is scrub the entire Pentagon budget in relation to the “strategic generalizations” first developed by the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (soon lost, as the Marines fell prey to the money wagon and lost their integrity as well).
See Also:
Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP
