There are a lot of defense contracts that are known wastes of money; performance and budget are poor. Lower level military officers (AF/Army Colonels & Navy Captains who actually run the programs admit it. I have recommended cancelling several (only the Contracting Officer can legally cancel a contract) and feel that my recommendations have saved money; but then, it gets wasted elsewhere. These were in the order of about $100-125 million each, not big, but significant just the same.
The higher level officers are more career conscious than the lower level officers and rarely admit that it is time to pull the plug.
The problem is that each new project or technology appears to offer great benefits at first and then following contract award, the successful bidder starts finding issues that they told the Technical Evaluation panel were negligible or presented no major hurdle. Recall that in 1990 Defense Secretary Richard Cheney ordered the A-12 aircraft cancelled; years of litigation followed.
It is just a system of greedy contractors milking the system
Coming from someone who is milking the system for all he can, as fast as he can.
