The country is less secure, and the U.S. Coast Guard is in worse shape now than when it began its $24 billion “Deepwater” refurbishment plan years ago, says the chairman of the congressional committee overseeing the maritime force.
One of the weaknesses caused by Deepwater is the loss of eight patrol boats due to a botched lengthening process. “When I went to see these ships that were supposed to be extended from 110 feet to 123 feet…I knew something was wrong,” says Rep. Elijah Cummings. “What you see is a lot of buckling in the floor,” he says.
After a cost of nearly $100 million, the boats will be decommissioned.
This question of conflict of interest is at the center of what [Retired Captain] Kevin Jarvis believes was fundamentally wrong with the way the Coast Guard handled Deepwater. Too big to be handled by the Coast Guard itself, the program was given to a joint venture of defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to manage. They then “contracted” the job out, mostly to their own companies.
“People say that this is like the fox watching the henhouse and it’s worse than that,” says Jarvis. “It’s where the government asked the fox to develop the security system for the henhouse, then told them ‘By the way, we’ll give you the security code to the system and we’ll tell you when we’re on vacation.’ It was… that bad,” he tells Steve Kroft [CBS].
You’ll be able to see more of this on 60 Minutes, Sunday evening. Not the actual patrol boats. The Coast Guard wouldn’t let them be filmed.
Defensetech.org has done a couple of good pieces on this fiasco – including links to the original YouTube video that broke the story.
Sell ’em to the Halliburton Navy.
Lemme guess.. Dubya told them which company was the best one for “upgrading” those ships.
What ??? Oversight ??? Ya gotta be joking, right ???
hhmmph, that’ll never do.
Should make the company pay for a new boat for each that had to be decommissioned.
Replacement of the eight ships would certainly seem reasonable. Of course the way the procurement system works, the contract for the eight ships would probably be awarded to the shipyard that botched the original work.
REMEMBER one thing….
This comes out of OUR pockets…
NOT the Gov, NOT the corp or business….
This from a group of people that Let the Citizians pay $600 for a Hammer.
but I get e-mails about lengthening processes all the time! they are supposed to be guaranteed and inexpensive!
oh, and inadvertantly on-point: the Contentlink [TM] pop-up:
Shopping for ‘Congressional’?
It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
Alan Shepard
Mercury Mission MR-7, 1961
I spent 4 years active duty on CG Search and Rescue. My take home pay was, after taxes, exactly $157.00 every two weeks. That as an E5 or Petty Officer Second class at one of the busiest SAR stations on the east coast in Cape Hatteras. I remember many a time we had to take up a collection just to purchase toilet paper for the station. I think (mostly) you probably get your tax dollars worth out of the Guard.
Halliburton, FEMA, the drug war, now this – is there any aspect of the public trust that the Curruptos In Charge haven’t managed to foul?
#10, mark you probably get your tax dollars worth out of the Guard.
No argument here. Although I’ve not been directly involved in an offshore incident (I fish a lot in Atl, Pac and GoM), I’ve friends who have been rescued and they wouldn’t be here if not for the heroic efforts of the CG. Too many stories to post.
12. Well thanks Bubba, its always nice to hear from a satisfied customer:)
#13, mark, Cool. That Civil Air Patrol (CAP) duty pays off, too!
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#13. Mark, it is scandalous that pay would be so low and basic necessities (TP) would be short, while defense contractors are raking it in with both hands.