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A senior analyst who wrote a report critical of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has suddenly departed the RAND Corporation think-tank amid an international row sparked by his comments.
Federal Member for Tangney Dennis Jensen revealed John Stillion, a respected senior analyst with RAND’s Project Air Force, had abruptly left the organisation and that there were suggestions he had been dismissed over the report.
“His abrupt departure amid the controversy over his report raises some deeply disturbing questions,” Dr Jensen said in a speech to parliament Thursday.
“There are suggestions in some quarters that he was dismissed over the document and that his removal was ordered by the US military.”
Dr Jensen said his office had been told by Project Air Force director Andrew Hoehn that Dr Stillion had left the organisation but that no further details had been provided.
He also said that Stillion was not his source for the material and that he had never had any contact with the analyst.
In his pre-briefing report for the US Pacific Vision war games exercise held in August, Dr Stillion had assessed the controversial JSF as being “double inferior”.
“Inferior acceleration, inferior climb, inferior sustained turn capability,” he wrote.
“Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.”
Dr Jensen confirmed he had distributed copies of the RAND report in a bid to stimulate debate about the controversial planned purchase of the JSF by Australia.
“The program general manager of the JSF project, Lockheed Martin vice president Tom Burbage, and the program executive officer within the USAF, Major General Charles Davis intimated that those who released the Rand document and made statements about it
had a vested interest.,” he said in his parliamentary speech.
“Well, that person is me, and I do have a vested interest. I want to ensure Australia purchases the capability that it requires, not merely a capability it has been sold.
“If the product is flawed, then our entire national security policy will be as well.
“And that is too important for us to ignore.”
Dr Jensen also suggested Australia’s Defence Department may have undertaken studies of the JSF and may have produced similarly negative assessments.
“Has Defence done any such analysis?” he asked.
“If so, what were the results of that analysis? If they have not, why not?”
(October 23, 2008)
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