Lockheed Over-Spends on F-35, Sued and Questioned on Capitol Hill as in UN
By Matthew Russell Lee
Inner City Press
March 13, 2008
WASHINGTON, March 13 -- In times of either war or peace, in procurement from the U.S. government here or the United Nations in New York, military contractor Lockheed Martin has so thoroughly covered its bets that it can scoff in the face of reports of corruption, campaign finance violations and cost overruns. On March 12, the U.S. Government Accountability Office criticized Lockheed for running $38 billion over earlier estimates to produce the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, which will be sold beyond the U.S. to the Netherlands, UK and Australia. The same day in the UN's budget committee in New York, acting chief procurement officer Paul Buades was asked to respond publicly to irregularities in Darfur contracts awarded without competition to Lockheed, first exposed by Inner City Press, which was cited in the transcript of the committee's proceedings. Lockheed Martin is represented on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee for the UN Development Program.
In Hawaii, Lockheed Martin was sued for a premature mortar explosion which killed a U.S. soldier. The Washington Post of March 13 reports, under the heading convictions and guilty pleas for campaign finance fraud, Kenneth Phelps of the Lockheed Martin Employees PAC. And yet the contracts just keep on being awarded, from missile warning satellites (FA8810-08-C-0002) to software for robots called LANdroids, to cockpit parts, "not competitively procured." Lockheed is moving to open a subsidiary in India.
U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee member Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.), who recently moved to cut sixty F-22 fighter jets, has been asked to look into Lockheed's UN contracts. Feingold chairs the Africa subcommittee; Lockheed has gotten two no-bid contracts in Darfur, Sudan alone in the past six months. Sponsor of the Arbitration Fairness Act, Feingold has previously received the testimony of Navy Lt. Max Ernest, whose claim against Lockheed Martin under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act was opposed by Lockheed as barred by an arbitration contract of adhesion Ernest had signed. Lockheed's public defense was to say it supports U.S. troops. UN peacekeepers, too -- for a price, inflated, and on a no-bid basis. As demands for answers spread from the UN to Capitol Hill, watch this site.
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Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
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