Beltway Bandits, Cronyism and the DoD’s Exclusive Contracts

The CIA’s on Amazon’s cloud. So now the DoD too? That seems unwise. Multiple providers would make much more sense for the country and taxpayers specifically, even with the potential inefficiencies.

(From The American Conservative)

According to reports, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the clear frontrunner to win a sole source, 10-year, $10 billion contract from the Department of Defense (DoD) to handle all of its cloud computing.

The case for a sole provider, however, is underwhelming, with critics saying the idea of putting all of the DoD’s computing on “one cloud” is unheard of. Congress should direct the Pentagon to do the right thing, not collude with a new member of the multi-trillion-dollar military-industrial-counterterrorism complex…

…The lamp of experience teaches that military procurement is to procurement as military music is to music. The Pentagon would be bankrupt if it held no government monopoly on the armed forces. The day before 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reported that $2.3 trillion in spending by the DoD could not be documented. Although required by law, the DoD has never been audited (though it’s supposedly in the midst of its first one now). In the meantime, a recent internal audit of the Defense Logistics Agency found that the agency could not provide proper documentation for more than $800 million worth of construction projects, among other abnormalities. No private investor would invest a penny in such a financially feckless enterprise. Even Saudi Arabia’s fabulously wealthy ARAMCO underwent an outside audit in contemplation of stock sales.

The DoD’s byzantine but also lackadaisical procurement standards give birth to chronic financial disasters. These include Lockheed Martin’s huge Air Force C5-A transport plane’s cost overruns and performance deficiencies; General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division’s production of the Navy’s SSN-68 Attack Submarine at a hugely inflated sum despite major construction flaws, and, more recently, Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapon system in the nation’s history (and still in testing stages after nearly 20 years).

This is all YOUR money that is being spent like this taxpayers.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/