Waste, Fraud & Abuse, Raytheon-Style

The Associated Press 20 Feb 2018

HONOLULU — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency spent a total of $130 million on a failed missile test off of [sic] Kauai.

The missile is meant to be deployed to Navy ships, Japan, Romania and Poland to protect against North Korean and Iranian threats.

The cost of the Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA missile that was still in development was $36 million, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

The cost of the intermediate-range target missile was about $40 million.

It also spent money on Pacific Missile Range Facility use, several radars and sensors and about 350 personnel, the agency said.

"This was a developmental and operational test of a new capability and utilized a missile variant not yet in production," Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, head of the Missile Defense Agency, said after the test.

A failure review board is investigating why the missile was unable to intercept.

The Raytheon/Kongsberg Navel [sic] Strike Missile is a long-range, precision strike weapon capable of reaching a target at distance of up 115 miles, according to published reports.

A separate SM-3 IIA also failed to reach its target in June off Kauai when a sailor on the Pearl Harbor USS John Paul Jones accidentally pushed a button that caused the missile to self-destruct.

That failed test cost $130 million.

Since 2002, the agency has received about $123 billion to develop and deliver ballistic missile defense system, according to a May 2017 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, and is requesting $9.9 billion in 2019.

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