Pentagon can't account for millions of dollars worth of F-35 parts

Per Bloomberg

Recently, the Pentagon could not account for millions of dollars worth of spare parts. Per congressional auditors, these involved hundreds of thousands of spare parts for the F-35 jets.

These spare parts were reportedly stored around the world and were reserved for US and allies using the F-35 jets. This resulted in the fifth consecutive year that the military failed to "pass a department-wide audit."

The Government Accountability Office's findings show evidence of financial management failure. It was also mentioned that through 2088, the total spending on the F-35 jets could reach an estimated $1.4 trillion.

The $1.4 trillion bill for the F-35 jets would cover its operation and support. GAO also reported that they didn't know the total value of the parts since the Pentagon's F-35 program office didn't maintain its accountability.

GAO: "(The program) has taken initial steps to establish property records, after spending approximately $12 million to conduct the inventory... (it) was unable to provide the cost, total quantity, and locations of spare parts in the global spares pool,”

GAO noted that they had to keep relying on the records of Lockheed Martin Corp. for the information.

Toward the end of January, Biden said that the US won't provide F-16 jets to Ukraine. This came despite previous discussions regarding the idea of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine.

Although Biden said that they wouldn't be sending any F-16 jets to Ukraine, they still sent 31 M1 Abrams tanks.

While Lockheed won numerous contracts with the Pentagon, in September, Raytheon was able to bag a contract worth $985 million for a missile prototype. This prototype would be of a hypersonic attack cruise missile.

Raytheon also won a $3.2 billion SPY-6 radar contract with the US Navy. The company was able to beat Boeing and Lockheed Martin for this contract.

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Bloomberg