Pentagon Makes Case for No More C-17s
Louis | Jul 15, 2010 |
0 All too often, defense programs consume resources like a fountain consumes water in a public park—always flowing regardless of cost or necessity. Programs with no clear use running billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule remain fiendishly difficult to kill. It is this unfortunate reality that made the July 13 hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management so refreshing.
Department of Defense officials emphatically pressed lawmakers to cease production of any more C-17 cargo planes, saying they were neither requested nor required. Indeed, they said, the current capabilities of our strategic airlift fleet exceed the military's present-day needs as well as worst-case scenario projections. Purchasing additional C-17 aircraft would run contrary to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' goal of saving $100 billion over the next five years and would necessitate cutbacks in other DoD programs.
(More after the jump)
Security Matters, defense spending, pentagon, homeland security, strategic airlift (all tags)
