“A lot of allied and partner disruptions” of the ISIS-K network have reduced its “capability to conduct such an attack,” Christopher Maier, assistant secretary for special operations and low intensity conflict, said in a brief interview after a breakfast meeting with reporters Friday.

President Joe Biden promised the day of the attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport that “we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay.” Maier said “we are in the process of doing that,” and “we have made significant dents in this network that conducted the Abbey Gate attack.”

The attack three years ago next Monday marked a devastating low point in an operation that critics have lambasted as chaotic even as 124,000 Afghans were evacuated amid the U.S. exit from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the country.

Republicans have seized on the attack to blast Biden’s foreign policy. During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July, former President Donald Trump said U.S. standing in the world “began to unravel with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the worst humiliation in the history of our country.”

Trump forged a February 2020 deal with the Taliban, but not the Afghan government, that set an initial timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which Biden modified. Trump and the Republican Party blame Biden — and now Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee to succeed him — for how the withdrawal was carried out.

During the breakfast with reporters, Maier said “we continue to assess that Abbey Gate” was the work of “more than one individual” who benefited from the ISIS-K infrastructure. Since then, he said, the U.S. and partners “have had clear cases where we’ve been able to disrupt the network that was associated with Abbey Gate.”

“One of the things we have been able to benefit from is Central Asian countries more attuned from the threat from Afghanistan,” he said. “Some of the recent plots that have been foiled point to direct support from some of these partners,” he said, without naming the countries involved.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to release its review of the withdrawal from Afghanistan early next month.

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Austin detailed the perils of a leadership void in a May 5 letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, who requested an accounting of the impact on national security from the hold placed by Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville on all general and flag officer nominations.

Tuberville placed the hold Feb. 16 over a policy that allows military personnel seeking an abortion to take leave and receive travel allowances. If the Senate doesn’t resolve the impasse, the hold could ultimately complicate the confirmation in a few months of the the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest U.S. military position.

“The longer that this hold persists, the greater the risk the U.S. military runs in every theater, every domain, and every service,” Austin wrote in the letter, released Wednesday by Warren’s office.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade abortion protections by the Supreme Court, the deadlock over military leader appointments highlights how deeply the political discord over the issue has crept into the procedural gears of Washington.

Tuberville’s hold also threatens to block the expected appointment of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That would mean the top civilian and uniformed Pentagon leadership posts would be held by African Americans, coming 75 years after President Harry Truman ordered to desegregate the military.

Tuberville, a member of the Armed Services Committee, told Austin in a March 22 phone call that he would keep his hold on Pentagon nominees unless the defense chief rescinds or suspends the policy “facilitating taxpayer-funded abortions for the military and their family members.”

While a hold doesn’t prevent confirmation, it would require several days of procedural steps to end debate. Senate leaders often honor hold requests because not doing so risks a range of parliamentary responses, such as a filibuster, which could expend significant amounts of scarce floor time, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The Pentagon has 64 three-and four-star nominations for positions scheduled to rotate within the next four months, including the Army Chief of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant and Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Director of the National Security Agency and the head of the US Cyber Command, according to Austin.

The Defense Department projects that about 650 general and flag officers will require Senate confirmation by the end of the year.

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A little-noticed provision of the $1.7 trillion government funding bill, signed by President Joe Biden on Dec. 29, orders the Pentagon to report back in 30 days on policies concerning the CUI designation given that “there is concern that the extensive use of CUI will result in less transparency, accountability and congressional oversight.”

The Pentagon’s under secretary for intelligence issued a CUI policy in March 2020 that has drawn scrutiny from both Congress and the Defense Department’s inspector general. Last March, the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned whether the designation was being abused to suppress public disclosures. The Pentagon inspector general announced an investigation into the issue in October.

The companion fiscal 2023 defense policy bill said the Pentagon’s “uneven application of CUI markings is particularly problematic for industry, which often receives little CUI training or guidance from the Government and is unsure of its responsibilities regarding this marking convention.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, has said the CUI label appears intended to suppress bad news under the guise of national security.

Last year, the Army stamped CUI on negative test results of Microsoft Corp’s new combat goggles. In 2021, the Navy directed the Pentagon’s testing office to mark as CUI a report that found the new presidential helicopter, Lockheed Martin Corp.’s VH-92, wasn’t yet “operationally suitable.”

More than 80% of those who experienced discomfort had symptoms after less than three hours using the customized version of Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles, Nickolas Guertin, director of Operation Test and Evaluation, said in a summary for Army and Defense Department officials. He said the system also is still experiencing too many failures of essential functions.

The problems found in the testing in May and June were outlined in a 79-page report this month. The Army marked it “Controlled Unclassified Information” to prevent public distribution, but Bloomberg News obtained a summary.

Despite the device’s flaws, Guertin doesn’t deem it a lost cause. He recommended that the Army “prioritize improvements” before widespread deployment to reduce the “physical discomfort of users.” He said improvements are also needed to the goggle’s low-light sensors, display clarity, field of vision and poor reliability of some essential functions.

On the positive side: The latest model’s reliability has improved for a key metric — the mean time between failures that render the whole system inoperable, according to the report. Leaders and soldiers also reported that the latest version “enhanced navigation and coordination of unit movements,” Guertin wrote.

Microsoft’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, is expected to provide a “heads-up display” for U.S. ground forces, similar to those for fighter pilots. It would let commanders project information onto a visor in front of a soldier’s face and would include features such as night vision. The Army projects spending as much as $21.9 billion over a decade on the goggles, spare parts and support services if all options are exercised.

The test results will be closely assessed by lawmakers as they decide whether to approve $424.2 million the Army proposed to spend on the program this fiscal year. The House and Senate appropriations panels separately proposed deep cuts to the Army’s request pending the outcome of the testing.

One finding that may give members of Congress pause: Acceptance of the goggles by soldiers “remains low” and they and their leaders indicated they don’t “contribute to their ability to complete their mission.” The exercise represented the fifth “Soldier Touch point” test of the system, a widely praised Army initiative to get soldiers’ feedback early in the acquisition process.

Microsoft, which wasn’t given a copy of the test results, said in a statement that “our close collaboration with the Army has enabled us to quickly build” and modify the device “to develop a transformational platform that will deliver enhanced soldier safety and effectiveness. We are moving forward with the production and delivery of the initial set” of devices.

Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, said in a statement that the service “conducted a thorough operational evaluation” and “is fully aware” of the testing office’s concerns. The Army is adjusting the program’s fielding and schedule “to allow time to develop solutions to the issues identified,” he said.

He said the Army believes the finding that the goggles cause “physical impairment” overstates that issue but is pursuing “significant improvements to address soldier concerns regarding comfort and fit.”

In August, Bush cleared the Army to begin accepting some of the initial 5,000 sets of goggles produced but on hold, saying that the service “is adjusting its fielding plan to allow for time to correct deficiencies and also field to units that are focused on training activities.”

Asked why the Army directed the test office to label the report “Controlled Unclassified Information,” Bush said the service “followed appropriate DoD guidance on classification.”

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The previously undisclosed failures with the electromagnetic systems made by General Atomics occurred during more than 740 at-sea trials since the aircraft carrier’s delivery in May 2017 despite praise from Navy officials of its growing combat capabilities. The Navy must pay to fix such flaws under a “cost-plus” development contract.

The new reliability issues add to doubts the carrier, designated as CVN-78, will meet its planned rate of combat sorties per 24 hours – the prime metric for any aircraft carrier – according to the annual report on major weapons from the Defense Department’s operational test office.

“None of the interruptions experienced during CVN-78 flight operations caused injury to personnel, or damage to the aircraft or ship,” Michael Land, a Navy spokesman, said in an email.

There were, he added, two “mission aborts” associated with the catapult launch system. In both cases, flight operations were briefly suspended and “a correction was implemented.”

The launch-and-landing issue is separate from the ship’s lack of 11 functioning elevators to lift munitions from below deck, an issue that’s drawn scrutiny from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican.

The Ford “will probably not achieve” its sortie rate requirement because of “unrealistic assumptions” that “ignore the effects of weather, aircraft emergencies, ship maneuvers and current air-wing composition on flight operations,” Robert Behler, the Pentagon’s director of operational testing, said in his assessment of the carrier, obtained by Bloomberg News.

Behler’s full weapons report for 2018 will be published this week – probably only days before the Navy announces a single multibillion-dollar design and construction contract to shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries for the third and fourth carriers in the $58 billion program. It’s part of the service’s push to expand its 284-ship fleet to 355 as soon as the mid-2030s.

In a memo to Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan transmitting the annual report, Behler highlighted the Ford’s problems, saying that although “improvements have occurred, poor and unknown reliability continues to plague the ship and key systems.”

President Donald Trump has expressed doubt about the electromagnetic catapult system, which has replaced an older steam-driven version.

In a Thanksgiving call to U.S. service members, Trump said “steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic – I mean, unfortunately, you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly.” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told a Washington audience this month that he’s explained to Trump the advantages of the new system over steam and that “we’ve got the bugs out.”

Ten “critical failures” occurred during 747 at-sea catapults of jets; another 10 “operational mission failures” occurred during 763 shipboard landing attempts, according to the testing office’s report.

Meghan Ehlke, a spokeswoman for General Atomics, said in an email that “per our contract terms and conditions,” the San Diego-based contractor won’t comment and has deferred all questions to the Navy.

Land, a spokesman for the Naval Air Systems Command, said in an email that the 747 launch and landings to date are “quite an achievement” but “an insufficient number of events from which to draw conclusions with respect to reliability.”

“I think the case for two right now is weaker because of the lack of success in getting everything working” on the USS Gerald R. Ford, the first vessel in the new class of carriers, Sen. James Inhofe said in an interview. The Oklahoma Republican spoke after joining Navy officials in a visit Monday to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Newport News.

Inhofe recalled that his last such visit was in 2015, when the Navy said that the $13 billion Ford was on the cusp of delivery. It was delivered in May 2017, but the contractor hasn’t completed installing, testing and certifying its 11 munitions elevators.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters in August that the elevators are “our open Achilles Heel.”

The Navy plans to complete installation and testing of the 11 elevators before the Ford completes its post-delivery shakedown phase in July, Capt. Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, said in an email. Six will also be certified for use by then, but five won’t be completed until after July, he said. “A dedicated team is engaged on these efforts and will accelerate this certification work and schedule where feasible,” he said.

Huntington spokeswoman Beci Brenton said via email that company officials had a “very productive meeting” with Inhofe that included both the elevators and benefits of a two-carrier contract.

The elevator’s completion “has been delayed due to a number of first-in-class issues associated with the first-time installation, integration and test of this new technology,” she said. “However, we are making substantial substantial progress in resolving the remaining technical challenges.”

Even as the Ford’s tardy elevator installations are underway, the Navy is working with Huntington Ingalls to determine by the end of this month an estimate of potential savings from putting the third and fourth aircraft carriers in the class on a single contract. The second carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, is already under construction.

The Navy has said savings on a two-for-one carrier contract could exceed $2.5 billion. A two-carrier contract would be a financial boon to Huntington Ingalls, the nation’s sole maker of nuclear aircraft carriers. Brenton, the Huntington Ingalls spokeswoman, said such a move would allow the company to “buy materials in quantity and phase work more efficiently,” while delaying the decision would “further weaken a fragile industrial base.”

“I’m not opposed to it at this point,” Inhofe said in the interview on Monday. “We have a need for two carriers – that work,” adding, “If this were a first delay I wouldn’t be as concerned.”

The carriers may prove a test case for how aggressively Inhofe will pursue oversight of major defense programs, a trademark of his predecessor, the late Sen. John McCain.

Congress gave the Navy authority in this year’s defense policy bill to pursue the two-carrier contract pending approval by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. This gives lawmakers like Inhofe less leverage to slow a deal.

But Inhofe said he’ll be conferring closely with Mattis and convey his concerns. “He is also one we can talk to,” he said. “I’m always done very well dealing with Mattis.”

During the shipyard visit, Inhofe said, “they spent most of their time down there telling me what a great thing” the carrier is “and I’m sure it is.” The $58 billion Ford carrier class is designed with major changes over the current Nimitz-class carriers, such as a catapult system that’s electromagnetic rather than steam-driven. But the new technology has had major reliability flaws.

In a Thanksgiving call to U.S. service members overseas, President Donald Trump brought up his frequent complaint about the new system. “Steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic – I mean unfortunately, you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly,” he said.

Navy officials told Inhofe the launch system has been fixed, citing more than 700 successful launches. “All that’s great and good,” Inhofe said. “But still, the elevators still don’t work.”

So “I feel a little uncomfortable saying, ‘Let’s go ahead and let’s get two and everything is going to be fine,'” he said.

Construction of the USS John F. Kennedy is about 47 percent complete at Newport News Shipbuilding. Navy figures show Huntington Ingalls isn’t yet meeting the goal it negotiated with the service: reducing labor hours by 18 percent from the first carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, which at $13 billion has become the costliest warship ever. They’re the first two of a planned, four-vessel, $55 billion program.

It took about 49 million hours of labor to build the Ford, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The Navy’s goal for the Kennedy is to reduce that to about 40 million hours.

Huntington Ingalls’s performance “remains stable at approximately 16 percent” less, William Couch, spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, said in an email. He said “key production milestones and the ship’s preliminary acceptance date remain on track” and there are “ample opportunities” for improvement “with nearly four years until contract delivery and over 70 percent of assembly work” remaining on the vessel’s superstructure.

But the Pentagon’s naval warfare division, which reports to Ellen Lord, the Defense Department’s chief weapons buyer, is less sanguine. It said in a July assessment that Huntington Ingalls “is unlikely to fully recover the needed 18 percent” reduction.

Meeting the labor goal is key to building the carrier within the congressional cap. It also would help demonstrate that the Navy can be trusted to keep costs in line as it seeks public support to increase its fleet to 355 vessels from the 282 that can be deployed today. The Kennedy, which is to replace the four-decade-old USS Nimitz, remains on track for delivery in September 2024.

Navy officials have cited what they describe as progress on the Kennedy as one justification for buying the third and fourth Ford-class carriers under a single contract, a move endorsed in the annual defense policy bill that President Donald Trump signed this week.

The Navy’s program manager for the carrier “assesses that although difficult, the shipbuilder can still attain the 18 percent reduction goal,” Couch said.

Beci Brenton, a spokeswoman for Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls, said “we are seeing the benefits associated with significant build strategy changes and incorporation of lessons learned” from the first vessel.

Brenton said “the current production performance” is 16 percent less than the Ford’s estimate at the time of the contract award for the second vessel but the reduction is 17 percent when compared with the first vessel’s current cost.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who’s been closely monitoring the carrier program, told reporters this month that Huntington Ingalls has been on “an impressive learning curve” in reducing labor costs.

But Shelby Oakley, a director with the GAO who monitors Navy shipbuilding, said “with so much of the program underway, it is unlikely that the Navy will regain efficiency.” In later phases of a shipbuilding contract, she said, “performance typically degrades, not improves.”

It’s also “unclear how the lessons learned” from the first ship “could help regain efficiency when they are already baked in to the Navy’s overly optimistic estimate for the program,” she said.

Asked to comment on the 16 percent reduction in labor costs, Rep. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican who heads the House Armed Services seapower panel, said the Navy signed a fixed-price contract “at a cost savings of almost $1.5 billion from the previous aircraft carrier” as they “continue to track toward substantial cost savings.”

The Navy has argued that it needs more of the planes designated F/A-18E/F to fill a shortage in its inventory until more of Lockheed Martin’s newer F-35s are deployed. Before Trump even took office, he’d promoted the Super Hornet as a less costly alternative to the F-35, though the two planes have different capabilities.

The proposal in the budget due to be presented Feb. 12 is likely to be welcomed in Congress, which has consistently added more Super Hornets than requested and resisted Pentagon plans under former President Barack Obama to phase it out. Lawmakers approved 12 of the aircraft in fiscal 2016 when none were requested and 12 more in fiscal 2017 when two were requested. This fiscal year, House and Senate appropriators have proposed adding 10 aircraft to the 14 requested.

If Boeing “can get the cash for this, it’s very good news” because 24 aircraft per year is the minimum economic production rate to keep Boeing’s plant in St. Louis operating, Richard Aboulafia, military aircraft analyst for the Teal Group, said in an email. Boeing also is working with the Kuwaiti government to build as many as 32 F/A-18s for Kuwait over the next few years.

“The big question is: How long will the Navy sustain the line?” Aboulafia said. “But in the ‘here and now,’ this is very good news for one of Boeing’s most profitable programs.”

The people familiar with the budget request asked not to be identified in advance of its release. Lt. Seth Clarke, a Navy spokesman, said in an email, “I can’t confirm a specific number” for any aircraft procurement in the coming budget.

The fiscal 2019 request for the Super Hornets will be the largest since fiscal 2012, when the Navy asked for funds to buy 28 of the fighters.

As president-elect in 2016, Trump upended years of Pentagon procurement practices with a tweet announcing he’d asked Boeing to price an upgraded Super Hornet as a potential replacement for what he called “the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35.”

While Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered a review the next month pitting the F-35C against “an advanced Super Hornet,” no results were ever announced. Trump later switched to praise of the F-35, taking credit for cost reductions in a contract that was already under negotiation when he took office.

The decision pits the Navy’s push to have an 11-carrier fleet ready to deploy as soon as possible against warnings from the Pentagon’s testing office that the USS Gerald R. Ford shouldn’t be deployed for initial combat duty until it’s gone through the tests, which involve setting off underwater charges to check the resilience of a ship’s key systems.

Mattis’ decision will be an indication of how he balances the need for rigorous weapons testing against delivering on his national defense strategy, which calls for deploying a more lethal force. In its proposed budget for fiscal 2019, the Navy removed funding for the test, which had been scheduled to start late next year.

The Ford is now scheduled to be ready for initial combat duty in 2022. The service wants to put off the shock testing and do it on the second carrier in the new class, the USS John F. Kennedy, which is scheduled for delivery in September 2024.

In a shock trial, a crew is on board, and the test isn’t intended to damage equipment. The results are used to judge vulnerabilities and design changes that may be needed.

“There are four major new systems on this aircraft carrier” for launching and landing aircraft, detecting aircraft and missiles and moving ordnance in elevators from deep inside the vessel, Robert Behler, the Pentagon’s new chief of testing said in an interview. “I think we have to know if those systems continue to work in a combat environment,” he said, but the decision of whether the shock tests occur next year “is not mine to make.”

Asked about Mattis’ review of the issue, Navy Commander Patrick Evans, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email, “Secretary Mattis will respond directly to the Navy when he makes a decision.”

President Donald Trump promised the “12-carrier Navy we need” as he stood on the Ford’s vast deck during a visit in March 2017 to Newport News, Virginia, where Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. built the ship.

Two more ships in the Ford class, the Kennedy and Enterprise, are currently part of the program that’s now estimated to cost $45.7 billion. That includes $2.8 billion for the vessels’ electromagnetic launch system. An older carrier, the USS Nimitz, is scheduled for retirement in the next decade.

Captain Danny Hernandez, a Navy acquisitions spokesman, said in an email that “internal discussions on Full Ship Shock Trials” continue “as we look at the technical and programmatic aspects.” He wouldn’t discuss the Navy’s fiscal 2019 budget plans.

Through late January, Hernandez said, the Ford “conducted over 700 catapult launches” and landings, including more than 100 launches and recoveries in one day on two separate occasions.

But Behler cited concerns about the survivability of key systems on the Ford carrier, which is designated CVN-78, in a memo to Mattis last month accompanying his annual report on major weapons systems. He echoed issues raised by his predecessor Michael Gilmore.

“The CVN-78 is making progress, however, reliability of the newly designed catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators and radar, which are all critical for flight operations, have the potential to limit the CVN-78 ability to generate sorties,” Behler wrote. “Additionally, the survivability of these newly designed systems remains unknown until the CVN-78 undergoes full ship shock trials.”

Citing all of the technical setbacks that delayed the official delivery of the carrier from September 2014 to May 2017, Behler said in his annual report that “it is clear that the need to conduct” the shock tests “has not been a factor delaying the ship’s first deployment.”

The Navy probably will still need to spend as much as $780 million to finish deferred work, correct deficiencies and conduct the Pentagon-mandated shock test and other outfitting, the Government Accountability Office said in a July report.

The availability of the fighter jet for missions when needed – a key metric – remains “around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of aircraft,” Robert Behler, the Defense Department’s new director of operational testing, said in an annual report delivered Tuesday to senior Pentagon leaders and congressional committees.

The F-35 section, obtained by Bloomberg News, outlined the status of the costliest U.S. weapons system as it’s scheduled to end its 16-year-old development phase this year. Starting in September, the program is supposed to proceed to intense combat testing that’s likely to take a year, an exercise that’s at least 12 months late already. Combat testing is necessary before the plane is approved for full-rate production – the most profitable phase for Lockheed.

Pentagon officials including Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and chief weapons buyer Ellen Lord have highlighted the need to reduce the F-35’s $406.5 billion projected acquisition cost and its estimated $1.2 trillion price tag for long-term operations and support through 2070. Still, the Defense Department is moving to accelerate contracting and production for the fighter despite the persistence of technical and reliability issues disclosed in the current phase of development testing.

A final version of the plane’s complex software has gone through 31 iterations and has yet to be deployed because of “key remaining deficiencies,” the report found. The troubles also include more mundane issues, such as tires on the Marine Corps version of the plane, the F-35B, that are proving less than durable.

The upcoming testing, “which provides the most credible means to predict combat performance, likely will not be completed until” December 2019, according to the testing office.

By the end of the testing needed to demonstrate that the F-35 is operationally effective and suitable for its missions more than 600 aircraft already will have been built. That’s about 25 percent of a planned 2,456 U.S. jets; 265 have been delivered to date.

Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 program office, and Lockheed spokeswoman Carolyn Nelson did not respond to requests for comment on the new testing office report.

In an earlier statement, Nelson said Lockheed’s 66 F-35 deliveries in 2017 represented “more than a 40 percent increase from 2016, and the F-35 enterprise is prepared to increase production volume year-over-year to hit full rate of approximately 160 aircraft in 2023.”

Behler’s report lists a host of unresolved issues that will carry over into the F-35’s combat testing unless they’re resolved before its planned start in September:

About 1,000 unresolved deficiencies with the aircraft, the latest version of its software, and the primary flight-maintenance system known as ALIS that’s crucial to keep the aircraft flying “will likely have a cumulative effect” on the aircraft’s capacity during the combat testing.

The final version of the software known as 3F is likely to have “shortfalls in the capabilities the F-35 needs in combat against current threats.”

Aerial refueling will be restricted for the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s carrier-based F-35C model.

The pilot’s helmet display that depicts vital flight and and targeting information is flawed.

Classified “key technical deficiencies” affect the firing of AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, and “system-related deficiencies” mar the dropping of air-to-ground weapons to support ground troops

It will be late 2019 before developing, testing, verifying and deployment is complete for all the needed on-board electronic files, or “mission data loads,” that identify the types of Chinese, Russian, Syrian or Iranian radar and air defense systems an F-35 pilot may encounter.

The problem of planes waiting for replacement parts is exacerbated by an immature diagnostic system that detects “failures” that “actually have not failed.” The misdiagnosed parts are sent back to the original manufacturer then “returned to the supply chain,” adding to the backlog in “an already overloaded repair system.”