Carter: JSF Program Manager Based F-35 Award Fees On Desire To Protect Lockheed Exec
A former Joint Strike Fighter program executive officer was fired in 2010 after explaining that he based the government's decision to award prime contractor Lockheed Martin 85 percent of the potential award fee -- when the F-35 program was suffering from major cost growth and schedule delays -- on his desire to protect the job of his Lockheed counterpart, according to a former senior Pentagon official.
But when General Heinz was fired, it wasn't reported that way back in 2010:
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program manager Feb. 1, saying someone must be held accountable for the program's delays and cost overruns.
News of the dismissal of U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. David R. Heinz came at the beginning of a media briefing about the fiscal 2011 defense budget, released a short time earlier. The proposed budget, which must be approved by Congress, includes $10.7 billion for 43 F-35s.
"To now move forward in this program in a realistic way, one cannot absorb the additional costs that we have in this program and the delays without people being held accountable," Gates told reporters at the briefing, televised live on The Pentagon Channel. "If I have set one tone here at the Department of Defense - when things go wrong, people will be held accountable."
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