In one of the most
strategically important areas in the nation for maintaining security, the insatiable greed of Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and
Bush buddy Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Bollinger Shipyards rears its ugly head once again in a mammoth shipbuilding scandal.
Is there anyone else left who thinks any of these Bush cronies are remotely concerned about our national security?
Coast Guard Suspends Converted Patrol Boat OperationsDecember 4, 2006
The U.S. Coast Guard suspended normal operations of eight converted 123-foot patrol boats assigned to Coast Guard Sector Key West, Fla., due to additional structural damage recently discovered in the hulls.
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The Coast Guard suspended operations today following a comprehensive analysis of the 123-foot patrol boat’s structure, including metallurgical examination, full-scale testing using an instrumented cutter, laboratory analysis, computer-based structural analysis, and a third party review from the designers of the original hull form.
Following the discovery of significant buckling in the structural members underneath a main engine aboard one of the eight cutters, Rear Adm. Dale Gabel, the Coast Guard’s chief engineer, personally inspected five more of the 123-foot patrol boats in Key West November 16. He found similar deformations, as well as other signs of hull weaknesses, aboard all five cutters.
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The Coast Guard maintains a fleet of approximately 250 cutters and nearly 200 aircraft around the country. A total of 52 cutters and 39 aircraft are assigned to the Coast Guard’s
Seventh District.
The Coast Guard is exploring options to address operational gaps due to this decision, including temporarily assigning assets from other operational areas to Sector Key West and employing the crews of the 123-foot cutters to augment other vessels.
The details in this recent
NYT article are sickening.
Billions Later, Plan to Remake the Coast Guard Fleet StumblesBy ERIC LIPTON
December 9, 2006
The initial venture — converting rusting 110-foot patrol boats, the workhorses of the Coast Guard, into more versatile 123-foot cutters — has been canceled after hull cracks and engine failures made the first eight boats unseaworthy.
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That has compromised the Coast Guard’s ability to fulfill its mission, which greatly expanded after the 2001 attacks to include guarding the nation’s shores against terrorists. The service has been forced to cut back on patrols and, at times, ignore tips from other federal agencies about drug smugglers. The difficulties will only grow more acute in the next few years as old boats fail and replacements are not ready.
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And instead of managing the project itself, the Coast Guard hired Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, two of the nation’s largest military contractors, to plan, supervise and deliver the new vessels and helicopters.
Many retired Coast Guard officials, former company executives and government auditors fault that privatization model, saying it allowed the contractors at times to put their interests ahead of the Guard’s.
“This is the fleecing of America,” said Anthony D’Armiento, a systems engineer who has worked for Northrop and the Coast Guard on the project. “It is the worst contract arrangement I’ve seen in all my 20 plus years in naval engineering.”
And an editorial synopsis:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/opinion/14thu1.html">Ships That Don’t Dare to Sail, December 14, 2006
The Coast Guard, supposedly our first line of defense against water-borne terrorists and drug smugglers, has been staggered by a shipbuilding scandal of enormous proportions. A long-term modernization program to replace nearly all of the Coast Guard’s ships, planes and helicopters — begun four years ago in the wake of 9/11 — is foundering while its projected costs are skyrocketing. In Iraq, lax government oversight and incompetence or profiteering by contractors have disabled reconstruction efforts. Now the same disease is undermining our coastal defenses.
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