“If not changed, the existing responses would at best be considered misleading and at worst, prevarications,” Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation, wrote in an internal memo criticizing the draft response to questions about F-35 testing from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain.
Gilmore’s memo is the latest example of his vocal doubts about the F-35’s performance in key tests. His critiques are at odds with the Pentagon’s narrative that the program is on course after earlier problems.
President-elect Donald Trump and his defense secretary -- he’s nominating retired General James Mattis -- will have to decide next year whether to increase F-35 production to 70 in fiscal 2018 from 63 this year, as requested by the Defense Department.
Trump, who on Tuesday complained that the cost of the new Air Force One being built by Boeing Co. “is totally out of control,” has also raised some questions in the past about the F-35. In an October 2015 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump criticized the fighter’s cost and said he heard “that it’s not very good” and that “existing planes are better.”
McCain’s Disappointment
In a Nov. 3 letter to departing Defense Secretary Ash Carter, McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he was “extremely disappointed to learn of another delay” in the $57 billion development and demonstration phase of the F-35 “with an associated cost overrun that may be upwards of $1 billion.”
Several of the answers in the draft response to McCain “ignore acknowledged facts, are ambiguous and misleading and if signed and sent as-is” could “generate substantial issues with the Congress,” Gilmore wrote to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, in the Nov. 28 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.
The draft answers should “be revised to provide clear, accurate and complete answers,” said Gilmore, who also raised concerns about the F-35 in a Nov. 18 letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work.
Gilmore “has shared his concerns” with Kendall who “has them for advisement in his response to Senator McCain," spokesman Mark Wright said in an e-mail. Navy Lieutenant Commander Courtney Hillson, a spokeswoman for Work, said in an e-mail that Gilmore’s information “was and continues to be used to help senior leaders make informed decisions.” (end of excerpt)
Click here for the full story, on the Bloomberg website.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: While they may not be unprecedented, Gilmore’s written warnings questioning the truth of the answers being prepared by the F-35 “enterprise” are certainly unusual.
Their blunt language is a measure of Gilmore’s frustration with the credulous way politicians eagerly accept pro-F-35 “spin” produced by the Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin, while ignoring his department’s well-documented and painstaking reports of that program’s failings and which are, unfailingly, shown to be true.
We have long reported and documented the lack of sincerity of the F-35 enterprise’s communications on matters big and small.
We remain surprised at the way military and political leaders -– in the US and elsewhere -- continue to buy F-35 aircraft in ever-increasing numbers despite their constant failure to meet contractual performance.
It seems the F-35 has become an article of faith.
With the program costing nearly $400 billion for development and acquisition, and up to $1 trillion more to operate over its lifetime, such irresponsible behavior by military and political leaders should not be tolerated.)
-ends-
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