Damn bureaucrats

One of my readers pointed me to the Soldiers For The Truth, a website with some very revealing information that I was completely unaware of. In an article entitled How the System Shorted Armored Humvees, Raymond Perry, a retired Navy Lt., points out that the real problem with the military's supply system is the PPBS, the Pentagon's Planning, Programming and Budgeting System. It turns out these bureaucrats are cutting funding repeatedly, even when the Secretary of the Navy approves the funding!

This is outrageous. Can you imagine the Purchasing Department of a company refusing to buy what the executives of the company authorized? That's the tail wagging the dog. Even more outrageous is that the rest of the government dumped the system in 1973! because it was counterproductive. (When I was in the Navy, we threw away brand new electronic parts at the end of every fiscal year, because, as I was told, if we don't "spend" the budget, it will be reduced.) This is no way to run anything, much less the US military, when guys' lives are on the line.

This is something Rumsfeld can fix, and he should fix it ASAP!

UPDATE: 2Slick has more thoughts on the same issue, including singling out the same article that I did.