Plot Summary
U.S. Army Major General Partridge (Grammer) appears before the House Armed Services Committee to defend his recent actions; the story is told mostly as a series of flashbacks:
In its latest effort to curtail excessive spending by The Pentagon, Congress appoints an outsider, USAF Lieutenant Colonel James Burton (Elwes) to observe the testing of several new weapons in development, including the Bradley. Burton reports to General Partridge, who is overseeing the Bradley.
Portrayed as an innocent, Burton quickly becomes disillusioned by the "real" way the development process works, in an atmosphere of corruption and/or bureaucratic inefficiency. Burton witnesses generals, including Partridge, reviewing other inefficient (and eventually cancelled) projects with Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinberger - such as the M247 Sergeant York and the A-12 Avenger II.
Read more about this topic: The Pentagon Wars
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