| WASHINGTON
- March 25 - The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) today
called on the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board (DAB)
to block approval this week of a U.S. Air Force request to purchase
the next lot of F-22 fighter aircraft. Some senior Pentagon officials
favor canceling this overpriced and unproven system, yet they
face the obstacle of Congressional pork barrel politics.
“For
every F-22 it buys, the Air Force could buy four tried and true
F-16s. Why are we wasting extraordinary amounts of money on
a system that we don’t need?” said Danielle Brian,
POGO’s Executive Director.
The DAB
is due to review the status of the F-22 flight test program
and its readiness to begin initial operational testing in a
two-hour closed-door meeting on Thursday morning. The Air Force
is asking permission to procure 20 of the tactical fighters
this year at a cost of up to $5.3 billion.
The F-22
fighter development and testing program is dragging behind schedule
and attempts by the Air Force to control costs are failing miserably,
according to a recent report by the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO), “Tactical Aircraft: DOD Needs to Better Inform
Congress about Implication of Continuing F/A Cost Growth”,
GAO-03-280 (see http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/da-030301-f22.html).
The report concluded that the Air Force has been unable to implement
the cost-saving measures it promised and has kept Congress in
the dark about excessive cost overruns.
The GAO
also concludes that the F-22 program is experiencing several
technical problems, including violent movement or “buffeting”
of the aircraft’s vertical fins, overheating in some areas
of the aircraft, a weakening of materials in the horizontal
tail, and instability of the aircraft’s avionics software.
POGO has
published several reports on its investigations into the F-22
that can be viewed at: http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/defsubmain.html#f22.
One report predicted that because of skyrocketing costs, the
Air Force would only be able to purchase 100 to 175 F-22s to
replace the fleet of 1,600 F-16s.
POGO
investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of
power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government
to powerful special interests. Founded in 1981, POGO is a politically-independent,
nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that
is accountable to the citizenry.
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