This anti-nuke missile system failed to hit target in half of its tests. So how did Boeing earn $2 billion in ‘performance’ bonuses?
Given the system’s weaknesses, four or five interceptors would have to be launched for each incoming enemy warhead, according to current and former officials familiar with the missile agency’s projections
From 2002 through early last year, the Pentagon conducted 11 flight tests of the nation’s homeland missile defence system.
In the carefully scripted exercises, interceptors of the Ground-based Midcourse Defence system, or GMD, were launched from underground silos to pursue mock enemy warheads high above the Pacific.
The interceptors failed to destroy their targets in six of the 11 tests — a record that has prompted independent experts to conclude the system cannot be relied on to foil a nuclear strike by North Korea or Iran.
Yet over that same time span, Boeing Co., the Pentagon’s prime contractor for GMD, collected nearly $2 billion in performance bonuses for a job well done.
The Pentagon paid Boeing more than $21 billion total for managing the system during that period.
A Los Angeles Times investigation also found that the criteria for the yearly bonuses were changed at some point to de-emphasise the importance of test results that demonstrate the system’s ability to intercept and destroy incoming warheads.