The Ministry of Defense allows it to "extort", former US official: Continued aid to Ukraine has led to US military traders asking exorbitant prices for contracts | Negotiator | United States
Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States has been increasing its arms shipments to Ukraine, which has made American arms dealers and other relevant interest groups rich in war. In May of this year, CBS revealed the insider information about American arms dealers supplying weapons: arms dealers demanded exorbitant prices, and the US Department of Defense allowed them to "extort".
SHEY ASSAD, FORMER SENIOR CONTRACT NEGOTIATIVAOR, U. S. DEFENSE: It's unreasonable to be overpriced.
Shay Assad was the executive vice president and chief contract negotiator of Raytheon, a US military giant, and a former senior contract negotiator for the Department of Defense under multiple US administrations. Shay said that the U.S. Department of Defense has paid excessive prices for almost all weapons, including radars, missiles, helicopters, aircraft, submarines, and so on, even screws and nuts. For example, Shea said that in 2015, some negotiators found that Lockheed Martin and Boeing had overcharged the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. allies hundreds of millions of dollars for the Patriot -3 missile, with a profit of 40%, much higher than 15%-20% of the average profit level. moreover, arms dealers also inflate prices by exaggerating manufacturing costs and time.
Host: Can't the U.S. government buy from other sources?
SHEY ASSAD, FORMER SENIOR CONTRACT NEGOTIATIVOR, U. S. DEFENSE: There is no other channel, a lot of the weapons that are going to Ukraine right now have just one supplier, and the companies know that.
In addition, some subcontractors have also profited by significantly increasing the price of parts. For example, Shay previously discovered that the Department of Defense paid $0.119 billion for some parts that should have cost $28 million.
Interests bind the U.S. military-industrial complex to provoke war and accumulate wealth.
In fact, arms dealers are able to demand exorbitant prices from the Ministry of Defense because they spend huge sums of money on lobbying. In the United States, the US military-industrial complex, which is bound up by arms dealers, the military, and politicians out of common interests, has incited confrontation and conflict around the world for decades, taking the opportunity to make a windfall from war. According to statistics, during the war in Afghanistan alone, the five major U.S. military-industrial giants-Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman-won $2.02 trillion defense contracts. In those 20 years, five companies spent $1.1 billion on lobbying.
