Jane's Defence Industry yesterday quoted a report by the financial giant Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in which their top defense analyst says that the US expenditure on defense will match that of the entire rest of the world at some time in the next twelve months.
The report, entitled 'The Defence Industry in the 21st Century', adds that:
"the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely". The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total.
Less than two per cent of the US defence budget is spent outside its home market, the report notes, and of this around one per cent goes to UK contractors.
That's an awful lot of money. What's it being spent on? Well, it has to be said that the profligacy of the current US military-industrial system puts the excesses of old-style Soviet corruption to shame. With a hawkish Republican government who don't believe in fiscal responsibility but do believe in revolving doors between the arms industry and politics, things are utterly out of control.
Take the massive Future Combat Systems program as just one example - costs have swelled from just $95 billion to over $450 billion and it is still riddled with bugs, behind schedule and some crucial parts simply may never work. Or how about the pork-laden supplemental bills which are meant to fund and support the troops in Iraq and Afghansitan. The last one included $23 million for a baseball stadium in DC, $32 million for forest roads in California and the Pentagon loaded it by $5 billion for "army modularity" - the push to break American troops into 43 smaller, more easily deployable brigades. The latter has been known about for years and should have been part of the main budget.
Then there are the various procurement scandals involving Boeing, which have cost over $5 billion so far - how much over no-one outside of Boeing, the administration and the Pentagon knows.
Or the massive fraud and incompetence displayed in Iraq.
Two audits by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found flaws in how U.S. government and military officials ran contracts paid for by the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) -- Iraqi money entrusted to the United States after the 2003 invasion.
In one audit looking at about $119.9 million in DFI cash paid out in south-central Iraq, auditors found deficiencies "of such magnitude as to require prompt attention." The account manager could not properly account for over $96.6 million in cash.
That's 80% of the money handled in that single area not accounted for! In all, auditors are worried about over $8 billion in Iraqi money and $18.4 billion of the American taxpayer's appropriated by Congress for Iraq's reconstruction.
And still the vested interests responsible for this huge rip-off can't make sure the troops doing the fighting and dieing for them have the equipment they need.
I recently posted on the iniquitous "nay" votes by 38 Republicans and one Democrat when it came to adding a measly for $213 million to be added to the supplementary measure which would keep the only armored humvee production plant running at a two shift capacity this summer instead of shutting it down. The amendment passed, luckily, but why would anyone vote against it?
Well, via Minstrel Boy blog, it seems that Senator Inouye of Hawaii, the only Democrat who voted "nay" and the man who added $10 million to this military supplemental bill for repairs to a University of Hawaii library, got a letter from two U.S. Army Deputy Chiefs of Staff:
"DEAR SENATOR INOUYE: Greatly appreciate your outstanding support as you work your way through the FY05 supplemental request. Understand you are receiving several inquiries regarding Up-Armored HMMWVs (UAH). To lend clarity to Army requirements for the UAH in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), we provide the following information.
The current GWOT requirement for UAH is 10,079. The amount already appropriated and supported in reprogramming actions funds 4,528 UAHs in FY05 enabling the Army to meet the 10,079 requirement in June 05 with no additional funding.
We currently are producing at the manufacturer's maximum capacity of 550 per month. This will continue through June 05, at which time production rates will decline. To sustain production at the maximum capacity through the end of FY05, the Army would need additional funding of approximately $213 million; however, this sum is not necessary to address the extant requirement.
Minstrel Boy does a great job of debunking this nonsensical claim that the Army has enough armoured Hummers.
So the Army says they don't need more armored humvees, yet around 11,000 vehicles are running around Iraq with hillbilly armor. Incredibly other generals testified in recent hearings and the GAO just released a scathing critique of the Army's procurement process. It waits until the need can be discussed in the past tense before issuing a purchase order and the very same generals testified that the retrofit kits used on the majority of vehicles are no longer a match to the strengthened IEDs used by insurgents. This is the same army that just last week, released a report saying that one in five fully armored humvees in Iraq were in need of major repair or replacement. And those are the newer and the best humvees we've got! It didn't count the older 1980s vehicles.
As off July, without that funding, the production of armoured Hummers would have been down to less than 70 a month! It seems the desk-soldiers at the Pentagon and the GOP's "support the troops" wannabe-generals are happy to plan ahead and overrun costs when it's their new shiny toys, but stop things in midstream when it's the p.b.i. who need anything. It's shameful.
I'm not even going to give any details on how the Republicans have gutted the budget for the VA at this time, when over 160,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress.
What I will do though is contrast the waste and stupidity with the news that Al Qaida buy the loyalty of entire provinces in Pakistan with a measly $5 million in loans,
For example, when Pakistani authorities initiated a dialogue with tribesmen in South Waziristan several months ago in an effort to restore peace in the tribal areas, local tribesmen told them that they had obtained huge loans from the terrorist group and had no option but to offer its members shelter or to work for its interests in the region.
The Pakistan Army later paid US$533,000 to some of the most-wanted militants in the area of South Waziristan to enable them to clear their debts and bury their guns. Insiders said Al-Qaeda paid out 10 to 12 times that amount to other militants in the last few years in order to keep up the momentum in the region.
and even have a pension plan for their cadre! I wonder if they invest in US arms companies? It seems like a good bet for high returns.
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