>From http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,353653,00.html >>>During the Kosovariac boondoggle, it became clear that the U.S. forces were taking on a great amount of the load simply because the "allies" had not kept pace with materiel and procurement. Thus, no matter how much we might want to reduce our "allies" dependency on American forces, it just ain't gonna be soon. Read on. It ain't just bad blood (BSE-based) apparently. A<>E<>R <<< > A new missile system for the RAF has been delayed by nearly seven years. The > Casom system is already in use in the United States air force and, according to > the report, was 'made substantial use of in Kosovo'. }}>Begin Military put at risk in £3bn fiasco Kamal Ahmed, political editor Sunday August 13, 2000 Britain's military capability is being severely hampered because more than £3 billion has been wasted through a series of financial blunders, The Observer can reveal. A damning report, which is based on an analysis of Ministry of Defence spending since 1993, will show this week that it can take more than 14 years from making a decision to buy new military equipment to its being put into service. Such long delays mean that by the time the new equipment is in place it has often been overtaken by technological advances and become obsolete. Millions more pounds are then needed to update it. Even equipment that is bought 'off- the-shelf' and supposedly ready for use takes six years to come into service. Cost overruns, delays and technical problems all add to the MoD's financial woes, the report says. The document, prepared for MPs investigating the performance of the MoD and obtained by The Observer , comes just days after General Sir Charles Guthrie, the Chief of Defence Staff, warned that a staff crisis and lack of resources were undermining the armed forces' strength as effective fighting units. Such a huge amount of wasted money will be damaging for the Ministry of Defence, which has recently received one of the biggest increases in its budget from the Treasury since 1997. 'Analysis of the trends in cost and time performance since 1993 shows that there is no evidence that the departments are controlling projects any better than in the past,' says the report. 'The average delay to projects since 1993 has increased significantly from 36 months to 57 months. 'There is also evidence that project life-cycles are getting longer, increasing the risk of them being overtaken by events, for example by technological advances. In time terms, the average in-service date delay has risen by 11 months since 1993 and there is no evidence that projects since 1993 are less vulnerable to delay than the ones they replace.' The MoD's top 25 procurement projects are analysed in the pages of the report. They are now expected to cost £38.3bn, an increase of £2.8bn compared with original estimates. Two projects, the Tornado aircraft modernisation plan and an air-to-air missile system, are 50 per cent over their budget. The report will form the backbone of an investigation into the MoD to be published by the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday. Members of the committee will question whether the MoD's new Smart Procurement Initiative is actually working. Sources on the committee said that a culture of deference and a complicated decision-making process meant that the MoD had been unable to modernise quickly enough. The investigation will focus on a series of debacles. It will question why the Merlin Mark 1 helicopter did not come into service until March 1999, more than five years late and £800 million over its budget. It will also highlight problems with the Trigat anti-tank guided missile, which has been delayed by nearly three years because of 'technical difficulties'. A new missile system for the RAF has been delayed by nearly seven years. The Casom system is already in use in the United States air force and, according to the report, was 'made substantial use of in Kosovo'. Nigel Griffiths, the Labour MP for Edinburgh South and a leading campaigner for changes in the MoD, said that it was time for the entire culture of the MoD to be fundamentally overhauled. 'I spoke to an ex-soldier who told me that they make regular complaints about equipment, but that when those complaints are pushed up to a higher level they are so watered down they bear no relation to the original problem,' he said. End<{{ A<>E<>R Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the "democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded subjects. [[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard, Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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