The bombing of the Cole really frightened the Navy as it should have. It felt that it needed a system to prevent terrorist ships from getting too close to our ships. Rings of floating, rubberized barriers would do the trick, it thought. For some reason the Navy felt that the fastest way to get these barriers built was to hire a small company with no experience in the field. "Small" was important as the government reserves some contracts for small businesses.
I guess the Navy felt that they could avoid the time of going through normal procurement channels by using the small business program. Why they hired a company with no experience building the system is the question. It seems as though they did so more to route business to some of their friends rather than produce a quality system quickly. The results were what you would expect - $100,000,000 down the drain and a system that did not work.
No comments:
Post a Comment