..specially if those friends bankroll your and your friends' campaigns
and they will most certainly at some point down the road they will
kick back to you a huge chunk of that dough like they did with Harken
and the Texas Rangers?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The total cost of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Joint
Strike Fighter program will surge $45 billion, or 22.6 percent, to
$245 billion, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Monday, citing
rising labor costs and program delays.

The Defense Department has recently signaled rising costs for the new
jet, also known as the F-35, which is designed to be the main U.S.
fighter in coming decades.

But the extent of the increase caught even program critics by surprise
and could prompt tough scrutiny by Congress, which is worried about
rising federal deficits.

"I'm totally shocked. To us this is the height of fiscal
irresponsibility," said Eric Miller, defense analyst with the
government watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight.

"The JSF is barely a gleam in the Pentagon's eyes and it's already
well on its way to becoming the biggest defense boondoggle of all
time," he said.

Citing cost overruns and budget constraints, critics have begun to
question whether the U.S. military really needs pricey F/A-22 fighter
jets, also being built by Lockheed, and nearly 2,500 F-35s.

In a regular report to Congress on major weapons programs, the
Pentagon blamed the JSF cost increase on revised contractor labor and
overhead costs, design delays, and a postponement in the start of
procurement from 2006 to 2007, as well as the addition of a new
optical tracking system[..]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20040405/ts_nm/arms_lockheed_dc

wpf

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