Pentagon weapons buyer says F-35 [JSF] cost overruns were inevitable

In a recent memo, John Young, undersecretary of defense for weapons acquisition and development, said the failure to build true prototypes led Pentagon planners and the Lockheed Martin-led contractor team to come up with unrealistic cost and weight estimates. The F-35 "leads the way in all recent cost-growth analyses" of Pentagon weapons programs, Young said in the memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reported Tuesday by Inside Defense.

The most recent public cost estimate of the F-35 program, prepared in late 2007, is that it will cost the Pentagon $298 billion (in 2001 dollars) to develop and buy 2,400 aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, up from an initial estimate of $229 billion, according to Young’s memo.

New estimates, expected to be released soon, are expected to show further cost growth.

Young and Gates have both said recently that the Pentagon needs to spend early to develop prototypes of weapons systems so the technical difficulties and likely costs are understood.

For the JSF program, the Pentagon contracted with Boeing and Lockheed to build "technology demonstrators" and not "true prototypes."

As a result, Young said, "the future of JSF cost growth was largely written in 2001 when budget and pricing decisions were made . . . based on inadequate knowledge gained from the JSF technology demonstrators."

Obama continues Bush's Iran policy

Also under President Obama Iran continues to dominate the world agenda. Iran is being presented as a crucial problem that must be solved. The Iran Problem is one with several layers. The uppermost layer is that Iran is a potential threat to world peace. What are the facts and the fiction that make up this first layer?

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WHO plays dubious role in Swine flu pandemic

On June 11, 2009 Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the WHO, declared the Swine Flu a pandemic. The declaration of phase six means that emergency procedures are put into motion which bypass established systems designed to safeguard the public health. The result of this is described in part six of this DeepJournal series on the Swine Flu. Conclusion: the vaccine is being tested while being administered to the public. The definition of what a pandemic is, is therefore of great import.

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Government flu advisors not independent

Ab Osterhaus is playing an important role in the affair surrounding the Swine Flu. Through his influence and conflicts of interest, he personifies a system that is now being subjected to investigation from all directions. Soon the investigators will undoubtedly stumble upon SAGE, the strategic advisory group of vaccine and immunity experts for the World Health Organization, or WHO. Osterhaus turns up here as well - he is an expert with SAGE.

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Influence of industry on 'fake pandemic' investigated

Also beyond The Netherlands the question is being raised over whether the large-scale acquisition of vaccines made sense. The Council of Europe began an investigation into this question last Tuesday. 'A number of members of the Council of Europe have expressed exceptionally harsh criticism of the World Health Organization and are asking themselves out loud whether drug manufacturers had too much influence in this decision'.

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How Dutch Minister Klink decided on vaccines with additives - 2

The Netherlands has an ongoing contract with Solvay Pharmaceuticals for the making of vaccines without additives. Then Dutch Health Minister Klink severs - with all of its accompanying financial consequences - the contract with Solvay. He signs new, secretive contracts with GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, companies that make vaccines with additives - the so-called adjuvants. In The Netherlands everyone is receiving the same vaccine containing adjuvants - whether they are young or old, pregnant or not. What happened that caused Klink to make this decision?

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