Pentagon Budget Numbers Posted by Mistake

[DoYouEverWonder]

AP Wire

January 30, 2004, 3:20 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon accidentally posted hundreds of pages worth of details from its forthcoming 2005 budget on its web site. The Defense Department had previously said that Bush would request $401.7 billion, 7 percent over this year.

Among the proposals it revealed -- and quickly removed from its site -- was data on weapons procurement, research and development, military construction, and operations and maintenance.

The figures showed that the request for procurement will be $74.9 billion, $6.2 billion less than this year. Research and development would grow to $68.9 billion from $64.7 billion, including $2.7 billion -- a near doubling -- to modernize the Army's armored weapons.



Calling all internet sleuths. Time to dig into the goggle cache.

[Caution]

1. would LOVE to see this

but I would urge caution...this kind of thing might be considered classified and people could end up in hotwater over it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Not if they posted it has part of their public site

The Pentagon and all the other government agencies post all sorts of information on their sites. Nothing illegal about looking at or copying anything they post if they put it in an place that the public can access.

[bif]

5. http://www.archive.org/

n/t

[LiberalFighter]

11. DOD was last archived June 2003

All could find via DOD was 2004 Budget

[peachy]

2. tell me somebody got a copy before they pulled it

please

[BeFree]

6. Somebody got it

There, ya happy?

Welcome to DU, it's a peach of a place, ain't it?

If the AP found out, you can bet someone told them. But don't think for a second that someone from inside the Pentagon who might be fed up with the cabal's misuse of the military had anything to do with airing the budget numbers. Know what I mean?

[Beetwasher]

4. Mistake or whistleblower?

Hmmm...Hope someone got a copy, could make for interesting reading...

[seafan]

7. Forbes has some info on this.

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The proposed 2005 U.S. defense budget spells good news for U.S. contractors, especially Boeing Co. (nyse: BA - news - people), given the huge boosts for missile defense and a high-tech program to modernize the U.S. Army.

The Pentagon's budget request for fiscal 2005, mistakenly posted on the Internet ahead of Monday's scheduled release, showed a $1.2 billion increase in missile defense spending and a $1.5 billion jump on the Future Combat System. Boeing has a large stake in both programs.

The budget also calls for spending almost $4.6 billion for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (nyse: LMT - news - people) Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, up from $4.25 billion requested in 2004, and $4.7 billion for the company's F/A-22 next-generation fighter jet.

Spending was to remain nearly steady at just over $3 billion for Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet attack jets.


Much more....

http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2004/01/30/rtr1236422.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Imagine if we spent all that money

to make life better for people, rather than coming up with better and easier ways to kill people? We wouldn't have to worry about terrorism if we switched our focus.

What a waste.

[alfredo]

9. I wonder if any more or less is earmarked for our soldiers

Looks like our toy makers get a big payday, even though the biggest doesn't value our soldiers one bit.

Military stint may cost Boeing workers overtime
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001846134_overtime30.html

By Kirstin Downey
The Washington Post


WASHINGTON — Some companies plan to take advantage of changes in the nation's overtime-pay rules by using their workers' military training as a way to exempt them from the extra pay.

Boeing, the nation's largest aircraft manufacturer, wrote the Labor Department in June, saying it "strongly supports" the revisions, particularly one that would classify employees who had received military training as "learned experts" who could lose access to overtime pay.

"Boeing observes that many of its most skilled technical workers received a significant portion of their knowledge and training outside the university classroom, typically in a branch of the military service, where through a combination of classroom training and field experience they become 'learned experts' on very sophisticated aerospace products or services," wrote Cheryl Russell, Boeing's director of federal affairs. "Boeing thus supports the department's focus on the knowledge used by the employee in performing her job, rather than the source of the knowledge or skill."

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. Wouldn't want the taxpayers to see this.

After all, in a "Free Country" is isn't any of our business to know what the govenment is spending the money on, is it?