Incredible Incompetence

It looks like the incredible incompetence of the Bush administration has permeated all aspects of our government -- even the Pentagon. This latest example of incompetence would be laughable if written in a novel, but it's true and that makes it very scary.

Back in 2006, Taiwan ordered some batteries for their military helicopters. Instead of batteries, the Pentagon sent them four highly secret fuses for our mark-12 nuclear bomb (pictured above). It is impossible to imagine how such a mistake could be made.

The batteries and the fuses don't look anything alike and are not even close to the same size. Even more incredible is the fact that on at least 8 inspection inventories, the fuses were not even missed.

The Taiwanese told us they had been sent something dangerous instead of the batteries they ordered, but even after being told about it, the Pentagon did not realize what a horrible mistake they'd made for another year.

I don't think the Keystone Kops could have screwed up this badly. First we ship nuclear fuses instead of batteries, and then we don't know we've done it for over a year. You'd think someone in the military would have gone and taken a look after being notified by the Taiwanese -- but no, that would have been too easy.

The really frightening part is that these are the people in charge of our nuclear arsenal. I wonder what else is missing and where we've sent it? How can we demand other countries safeguard their nukes, when we cannot even control our own?

We have got to put some competent people in charge in the next election. People who will demand competence from top to bottom. You cannot have competence throughout government without competent leadership at the top.