S. Korea NSO chief may face probe over F-35 deal

I hope no one is going to act surprised over all this.

National Security Office (NSO) chief Kim Kwan-jin may face an investigation over his role in the controversial decision to buy F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin.

Kim headed a panel that selected F-35s over Boeing's F15-SEs as a defense minister in March last year.

The office of the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs began its probe last week amid growing allegations that the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) lied about the terms of the contract in order to help Lockheed win the bid.

The agency admitted that it failed to receive four core F-35-related technologies from Lockheed, and this is expected to cause a setback for the nation's 8.5 trillion won KF-X project to develop indigenous fighter jets by 2025

Unfavorable in technology transfers...a potentially corrupt deal, and a jet that is likely to get shot down vs. emerging (and some existing) threats. Then there is that whole underdeveloped 'mistake-jet' syndrome.



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