Invited Onwards

Something tells me the Vince Foster story has nothing on this:

..The second-highest ranking member of the US air force's procurement office, who oversaw billions of dollars in priority weapons purchases, has committed suicide, military officials said yesterday.

Charles Riechers, 47, came under scrutiny by the Senate armed services committee earlier this month for taking a lucrative job at a defence contractor while awaiting confirmation in his new job as the principle deputy assistant secretary for acquisition.

The job put Mr Riechers in charge of ordering some of the highest priority weapons programmes of the air force, including a $40bn aerial refuelling tanker and a $15bn combat and rescue helicopter...

Move along, move along nothing to see here, I'm sure...

And oh, by the way, the New York Pravda notes:

... At a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan said far too many weapons acquisitions had been plagued by “cost increases, late deliveries to the war fighters and performance shortfalls.”

Senator Levin added that 25 of the Pentagon’s major defense acquisition programs had overruns of at least 50 percent. And he expressed concern about an “alarming lack of acquisition planning across the department.”

“The root cause of these and other problems in the defense acquisition system is our failure to maintain an acquisition work force with the resources and skills needed to manage the department’s acquisition system,” Mr. Levin said. “The Pentagon and Justice Department are currently conducting criminal investigations into some $6 billion in contracts to supply essential supplies to American troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.”