MND MUM ON 'FAILED' RESEARCH PROGRAM WITH U.S.
ROC Central News Agency
2006-08-08 23:25:24
Taipei, Aug. 8 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense (MND) declined to comment Tuesday on a media report that a five-year cooperative research program with the United States on a mobile electronic warfare system ended in failure.
According to a local evening newspaper, the U.S. military proposed the cooperative R&D program with the Republic of China Army after the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis in which China lobbed missiles into waters close to Taiwan's Keelung and Kaohsiung ports in an attempt to intimidate local voters ahead of the country's first-ever direct presidential election.
The report said the research project, dubbed "Iron Fist, " was launched in 1998, but the program, which cost Taiwan taxpayers NT$2.2 billion, turned out to be a flop and closed in 2004. According to the report, eight senior military officers have been punished for the botched program.
MND spokesman Wu Chi-fang said relevant information was mentioned in an annual accounting report submitted by the Ministry of Audit to the Legislative Yuan. Now that the program was already closed and the guilty were punished in accordance with relevant regulations, Wu said the ministry had no comment on the issue.
(By Sofia Wu)
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