Pentagon acquisition guru Kenneth Krieg has told Congress that DOD must continue the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle program despite the fact it has exceeded its cost by more than 25 percent, reports Reuters news service. Krieg must officially declare that a program is “essential” once it hits a Nunn-McCurdy breach. According to Reuters, Krieg told lawmakers that the Pentagon would restructure the program and limit production to five a year until initial operational testing is complete. The latter requirement would seem rather superfluous, considering the development models and now production models have been in heavy operational use since the beginning of the war on terror.
The U.S. continued to move a significant amount of airpower toward the Middle East in recent days as talks to forge a nuclear deal with Iran hung in the balance. Flight tracking data indicate there was unusually heavy movement of dozens of fighter jets and other assets that might be…
