The Chinese invasion
Stars & Stripes reports that the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report yesterday that warned of a flood of Chinese counterfeit electronics which have filled the service bins of aircraft parts for our military aircraft;
The final report uncovered 1,800 cases of bogus parts during the two-year period of 2009 and 2010, with more than a millions individual parts involved.
The investigation found that fake parts are widespread in the military, from the Air Force’s biggest cargo plane, to Special Operations helicopters and a Navy surveillance plane.
More than 70 percent of the fake parts originated in China, with the United Kingdom and Canada the next largest sources. Counterfeit parts are made and sold openly in China, and the government there has taken no steps to curtail the trade, the report said.
S&S says that Senators Carl Levin and John McCain inserted language into last year’s defense budget to hinder the practice of buying counterfeit parts, but that the practice continues.
In addition, many contractors failed to rigorously test parts for quality and durability.
Category: Military issues
And those of us who objected in the first place to having parts for our weapon systems manufactured on foreign soil, especially by those not proven to be long term allies, were called paranoid. Uh-huh.
Hmmm, yet again, the Taxpayer getting more bang for his buck, by using the lowest bidder? It appears not.
I wonder if Slick Willie got a cut of this action?
Pretty good odds that Al Gore did.
And when a plane or chopper falls from the sky due to a faulty (counterfeit) part, how difficult will it be to go after the (foreign) manufacturer? Or will the gubbment even bother?