Thursday, September 28, 2006

Admiral Blair sings a Steve Miller song

We are back again to retired Admiral Blair. Reading the latest from the WaPo, one song came to mind. "Take the Money and Run."
The head of a Pentagon-funded research organization has resigned after the group's trustees concluded that his simultaneous service on the boards of two defense contractors was contrary to its conflict-of-interest policies.

Asked to resign from the corporate boards, retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair chose instead to leave his positions as president and trustee of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit company that has long provided the Defense Department with independent technical advice on large weapons systems.

The resignation followed controversy in July over Blair's involvement in the drafting of a report by the institute last year on the F-22 Raptor, a fighter jet that has experienced a series of cost overruns and technical problems. Blair was then on the board of EDO Corp., an F-22 subcontractor, and his dual roles provoked criticism by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Blair's resignation was announced in a memo circulated to the institute's 800 employees Monday by John M. Palms, a former president of the University of South Carolina who is chairman of the IDA's board of trustees. Palms said, without naming the companies, that the trustees knew about Blair's membership on the boards of EDO and Tyco International Ltd. at the time he was hired in 2003.
Well, like 'ma Pappy always said - watch what a man does, not what he says, to see what he thinks is important.

With the six-figure retirement benefits - it is just too much to work at a non-profit to assist in the global war, no - the goodies from Tyco and EDO are just too tasty.

That is fine. Just know that we know.

No comments:

Post a Comment