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- <text id=90TT2653>
- <title>
- Oct. 08, 1990: Business Notes:Defense Contracts
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Oct. 08, 1990 Do We Care About Our Kids?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 66
- Business Notes
- DEFENSE CONTRACTORS
- It's Defective? Buy More!
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Despite its efficiency in carrying out Operation Desert
- Shield, the Pentagon is a paper tiger when it comes to
- penalizing its contractors for fraud and other crimes. Just last
- February Northrop pleaded guilty to 34 counts of falsifying test
- results on key parts for cruise missiles and AV-8B Harrier jump
- jets. In part because of those abuses, the Pentagon banned the
- company from receiving new contracts. But the Defense Department
- disclosed last week that it has waived the ban to allow the Navy
- to buy 104 more Harrier gyroscopes (total price: $300,000),
- which are made only by Northrop. Because the gyroscopes last
- only about two-thirds as long as promised, the Navy has been
- grounding the planes. At least 10 of the jets are now stationed
- in the Persian Gulf. Says John Conyers of Michigan, chairman of
- the House Government Operations Committee: "Northrop is a case
- study in botched Pentagon procurement."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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