The Defense Industry's Secret Weapon

Mon August 24, 2009 4:00 AM PST
In July, to great fanfare, the Obama administration finally killed the F-22 fighter jet—an underperforming, overpriced Cold War relic that has never flown a combat mission over Iraq or Afghanistan. But all the breathless talk of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' "sweeping reforms" obscures an unpleasant truth. While the rare defeat of congressional porkmongers offers a ray of hope, real reform will require a far more ambitious, persistent effort. And standing in the way is the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian official—handpicked by Gates and coming directly from a lobbying job for the giant defense contractor Raytheon.
William J. Lynn III is, after Gates, the most powerful person in the Defense Department, responsible for managing the entire building, including weapons acquisitions. His opposition to reform is well documented. During the Clinton administration, he rose to be the Pentagon's comptroller, in charge of a system that was completely unable to account for the hundreds of billions it spent every year. Faced with this mess, Lynn's major contribution during his tenure was to block fiscal accountability rather than promote it. In public testimony to a federal accounting board, Lynn requested that the Pentagon be exempted from a crucial part of the Chief Financial Officers' Act of 1990, a reform requiring all federal departments to comply with accepted financial integrity standards. The board granted his wish. Next, he advocated for a notorious bill-paying system referred to by critics as "pay and chase" under which the Pentagon hands a contractor a quick payout for bills and later tries to figure out what the money was for. Today's financial chaos and lack of accountability at the DOD stem in part from Lynn's handiwork.
After Lynn left the Pentagon, he accepted a plush position in 2003 as chief lobbyist for Raytheon, the DOD's fifth-largest defense contractor. Lynn spent the next five years pushing Raytheon moneymakers such as computers for the F-22 and the electronics for the Navy's preposterously overpriced Zumwalt destroyer. LinkHere