DROP IN THE BUCKET

  • Share
  • Read Later
The building brouhaha is really no big deal if you comparison-shop, Washington style. The $310 million price tag, TIME Defense correspondent Mark Thompson points out, is far short of $2 billion for just one of the CIA's KH-12 satellites. And it's just one-eighth the cost of a B-2 bomber: "$300 million?" Thompson notes. "That's barely enough for an airbag."