Comments on: No One Could Have Imagined…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:22:12 +0000

Andante, from what I’ve read they sign exclusive, single-source contracts for a lot of things, which is just stupid for a business and borders on criminal for the military. No doubt the vehicle repair contract is slow because the guy Halliburton subcontracted the job to only has one limb on the tree in his backyard strong enough to support pulling engines.

Michael, this is basic to any organization. This is budgeting. Your office at the university has to be better at budgeting than this or someone would lose their job. It’s not like the military doesn’t have the records to tell you what the predicted costs will be.

Karen, they are putting all kinds of routine expenses in the “emergency” requests to avoid having to justify them. It’s another way of avoiding oversight.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:07:05 +0000

*put that in their budget requests*? I think these are still being passed off as “Emergency Spending Appropriations” to avoid the budgetary hemmoraging once these costs are factored in to the Federal *High Tide and Rising* Budget Deficit!

Blech…feckless morons and idiots who can’t *govern* nor *manage* to save our lives!

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:39:00 +0000

I’ve never even served in the military, but even I know the old military maxim that battle plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy. Where in God’s name did the Shrubbery find a sufficient supply of complete naïfs to staff the Pentagon entirely with people who couldn’t find their way to the men’s room without a guide?

By: andante

andante — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:32:20 +0000

What we have hear is not only a serious lack of imagination, but a grotesque lack of experience and common sense. Not to mention criminal hubris, greed & arrogance.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 04:20:39 +0000

Steve, this is basic to any kind of business. Maintenance scheduling is a standard, off-the-shelf program, not rocket science. Hell, they didn’t even increase ammunition purchases after they started the war. They though this was going to be a couple of months at the outside.

They printed up their time line and just assumed that the project would adhere to it.

They did not even remember to get Iraq to surrender and have the army stack its arms.

They aren’t qualified to manage a McDonald’s.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 02:52:53 +0000

... Donny forgot to put that in his regular DoD budget request. I wonder why. Wrong company got the maintenance contract? The problem is that Rumsfeld never read the right book: ... It would help if we had a real president who had ever read any real book, a real president who was not afraid to keep Rummy in line... nah; there I go dreaming again.