Lack of Intelligence
America's secret spy satellites are costing you billions, but they can't even get off the launch pad
No fault. Some national security experts worry that no one is being held accountable for the NRO's failures. They cite the case of Dennis Fitzgerald, an agency official. Fitzgerald was responsible for the Advanced Parcae satellite--the spacecraft used to track terrorist shipping--and was promoted to the position of NRO deputy director a few weeks before the launch of the flawed satellite. He remains in that position today. Fitzgerald declined to be interviewed.
There is also the problem of apparent conflicts of interest. A case in point: Jimmie D. Hill, the former NRO deputy director, now serves two masters, as a consultant for the NRO and Lockheed Martin. Last month, he signed a new contract with the company. Despite appearances, he sees no conflict. "I don't consult with them on the same thing," Hill explains. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Harris, who was NRO's director, now is president of Lockheed Martin's Missiles & Space Operations division. Harris also says his conduct has been above reproach. Both Harris and Hill were forced out of the NRO in 1996 in the scandal over excessive reserve funds. Today, the NRO's new conference center is named after Hill.
NRO Director Teets has his own issues. In August 1993, a Martin Marietta Titan rocket carrying a $800 million Parcae satellite blew up seconds after liftoff. Teets was president of Martin Marietta's Space Group at the time. During 1998 and 1999, while he was president of Lockheed Martin, mishaps on Titan rockets caused the loss of three national security satellites worth an estimated $3 billion. In one case, a defense-communications satellite didn't reach its proper orbit because someone entered the wrong decimal point in the rocket's software. The error was detected in prelaunch operations but not corrected before launch. An investigation by the Air Force--as well as an internal company review--concluded that the program had suffered from a lack of oversight and deficient systems engineering and testing procedures. "Perhaps we have cut corners where we shouldn't have," Teets told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time, adding that the company should have put "mission success before cost performance or schedule performance."
Teets was forced out of Lockheed Martin in October 1999. Two years later, he was nominated to head the NRO, but Congress showed no interest in his Lockheed Martin troubles. During his confirmation hearings, a Senate committee did not ask a single question about the Titan rocket problems.
Although Teets inherited a troubled agency, some NRO insiders still believe he is ill-suited for the job. To complicate matters, he divides his time between the NRO and the Pentagon because he also serves as under secretary of the Air Force, overseeing all U.S. national security space programs. He spends most of his time at the Pentagon and only about one day a week at the NRO headquarters in suburban Virginia. "You've got a big organization with lots of contractors and a part-time boss," says a former CIA official who has worked closely with the NRO. "You wouldn't manage a company this size with a part-time CEO," he says.
advertisement
