It's a service, right?
"Coast Guard upgrade goes slow; Only 2 new ships added in 10 years" August 22, 2011|By Alicia A. Caldwell, Associated Press
PASCAGOULA, Miss. - Nearly a decade into the 25-year, $24.2 billion overhaul intended to add or upgrade more than 250 vessels to the Coast Guard’s aging fleet, it has two new ships to show after spending more than $7 billion.
Now it faces an uphill battle persuading a budget-conscious Congress to keep pouring money into a project plagued by management and cost problems....
The modernization effort that began in earnest in 2002 was designed to replace ships from the World War II, Korea, and Vietnam eras. But within the first year, as Congress started to dole out billions of dollars for new-found homeland security concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Coast Guard officials realized their blueprint was not exactly what was needed.
“I’ll be the first to admit, we weren’t prepared to start spending this money and supervising a project this big,’’ said Robert Papp, the Coast Guard commandant.
Budget-cutting in the 1990s had left the service with few experts on buying new ships and other equipment. So the Coast Guard turned the project over to a joint venture between Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin.
Now you know into WHICH POCKETS the MONEY WENT!
Huntington Ingalls Industries, a Northrup Grumman spinoff that is building Coast Guard ships, referred all questions about the program to the Coast Guard....
The program, known as Deepwater, appeared in trouble almost from the beginning. Early government audits criticized Coast Guard officials for a lack of oversight, which invariably led to early delays and cost increases.
“In essence, the contractors were overseeing themselves,’’ said Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
We used to say fox guarding the hen house.
Hurricanes, including Katrina in 2005, led to delays at the Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard where many new ships are being built.
In the early 2000s, the Coast Guard awarded a contract to Bollinger Shipyards Inc. to convert its 110-foot patrol boats to 123-foot vessels. Starting with eight ships, the contractor attached new steel to extend the hulls of the ships by 13 feet. The results were disastrous.
“What we found out was when you put new steel on old steel, it flexes,’’ Papp said. “Those patrol boats were unusable afterward, and there was a chance of a catastrophic failure.’’
More WASTED MONEY on MILITARISM based on lies!
I'm not saying we shouldn't have a Coast Guard, but WTF?!!
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Also see: War Profiteer Piece of the Pie: F-35 Flying High in House
But social services have to be slashed.
