Tue Feb 14 2012
So often when something in Washington goes wrong, no one is singled out as being at fault. Not so at the Pentagon under holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Angered at cost overruns and "a troubling record of performance" in a hugely expensive new weapons system, the Joint Strike Fighter, Gates announced he was replacing the officer in charge of the F-35 project, Maj. Gen. David Heinz.
And he also said he was withholding $614 million in performance bonuses from contractor Lockheed Martin.
To paraphrase another administration official, that's change we can believe in.
Earlier this year, Gates relieved Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, over a difference in war-fighting philosophy. He fired the secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force chief of staff when a B-52 flew cross-country accidentally loaded with nuclear missiles on their watch. And he fired the secretary of the Army and the director of Walter Reed Army Medical Center for poor treatment of outpatient soldiers at the hospital.
No one likes to see someone lose a job or have a career come to an end. But in any system that aspires to be effective, the buck truly does have to stop somewhere.
That's what Secretary Gates has done at the Pentagon. The rest of the government, please note.
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