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14 February 2011 |
| http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/14/pentagon-to-defund-nato-missile-defense-after-2013/ |
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The Pentagon’s comptroller Robert Hale has announced that the US will defund the NATO Missile Defense system after fiscal year 2013, but insisted that they would keep pumping the money into the Lockheed Martin program through that period to “avoid costly termination fees.” The MEADS project had been eagerly supported by the Obama Administration, nominally to combat the “threat” posed by non-existent Iranian missiles targeting Western Europe. The Pentagon said European nations might still continue to fund the program, but this seems unlikely. Instead, the struggling program will likely fall in the face of growing costs and a floundering schedule. The Pentagon insists it “cannot afford this additional research and development funding.” But being that this is the Pentagon, it should come as no surprise that the money they “cannot afford” is going to be spent anyhow, with officials saying that as of the end of 2013 they’ll spend the money “saved” by defunding MEADS to buy more Stinger and Patriot missiles. |
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14 February 2011 |
| http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/15/us-usa-budget-meads-idUSTRE71D67K20110215 |
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"Our partners may go forward with some MEADS, but it is not our plan to do so," the Pentagon's comptroller Robert Hale told a budget briefing. He was referring to Italy and Germany. Lockheed Martin Corpleads an international consortium developing the Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS, in partnership with Italy and Germany. The Pentagon said it remained concerned about the overall track record of the program and might ordinarily have canceled it. But Hale noted that continuing development of the program until 2013 would avoid costly termination fees and benefit the partner nations on the program. A Pentagon fact sheet said the program had experienced a number of technical and management challenges since its start in the mid-1990s. It said that although the program had shown marked improvement in recent years, it had been unable to meet schedule and cost targets. It said a recent restructuring proposal would have extended the design and development phase by some 30 months, requiring at least $974 million in additional U.S. investment from fiscal year 2012 through 2017, and possibly as much as $1.6 billion. Washington said it had decided to continue the program's development up to a cost ceiling of $4 billion to ensure development of a meaningful capability for Germany and Italy, and possible future option for the United States. The department said it had already spent $1.5 billion on the program to date, and was already committed to funding an additional $804 million. Continuing the program would cost nearly $1 billion, or more, but the Army could not use MEADS to replace its Patriot missiles given delays in the MEADS program. Lockheed insisted the program had met all major milestones since it officially began in September 2004, completing a critical design review and system program review. The first MEADS battle manager and launcher had moved to a test range in Italy for system tests, Lockheed spokeswoman Cheryl Amerine said in a statement. She said MEADS could defend up to 8 times the area of current systems with fewer system elements at a cost lower than upgrading existing systems. |
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15 February 2011 |
| http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-15/german-government-under-pressure-to-scrap-meads-missile-project.html |
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The Pentagon said yesterday it will terminate funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System when the current contract ends in 2013. A lawmaker for the Free Democratic Party, Merkel’s coalition partner, called the U.S. decision “not unexpected and correct” and renewed the party’s objection to the project. “If the U.S. is now canceling the project as part of budget-cutting measures, Germany shouldn’t be left behind,” the Free Democrats’ Juergen Koppelin, who sits on the parliamentary budget committee, said today in an e-mailed statement in Berlin. The Free Democrats, which opposed the project when it was approved by a Social Democratic-led government in 2005, last year called for the end of Meads as part of measures to cut 8.3 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in defense spending by 2014. Alexander Bonde, a lawmaker from the opposition Green Party, said Germany should scrap the program after 2013 and begin talks with the U.S. and Italy -- the other two partners in the project -- to end the development stage immediately. Overruns already would cost the German government an additional 250 million euros over the initial 1 billion euros in development costs for Germany, according to his office. The Greens endorsed Germany’s participation in the project in April 2005 after some of the party’s conditions were met. Germany will continue its commitments for the development phase of the project, according to a Defense Ministry official who declined to be identified in line with government rules. The official wouldn’t comment when asked about the government’s intentions beyond the development phase. Cost, Delay A Pentagon fact sheet showed that continuing with the program would have required as much as $1.16 billion additionally for the five-year period ending 2017. The Meads system had grown in cost by about $1 billion and its overall schedule delayed an additional 18 months, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee in its version of the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill, passed by Congress last month. The Meads program is managed out of Orlando, Florida, under Meads International LLC, a joint venture of Bethesda, Maryland- based Lockheed Martin Corp., Lfk-Lenkflugkorpersysteme Gmbh of Germany and MBDA of Italy. MBDA is the world’s second-largest missile maker and is jointly owned by BAE Systems Plc, European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co. and Finmeccanica SpA.
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