Does it look like some sort of swindle has been perpetrated on the developers/integrators ?

A computerisation/system integration project is supposedly in a mess.

Customer's project office posts a person Mr E to work with a developer and share ideas, but the person posted never bothers showing up.

Of people who are posted, and do show up, sometimes their mail is deliberately misdirected. for example if Mr A and Mr B are posted, Mr A's mail is addressed c/- Mr B

Mr C, a customer representative, is posted to work alongside
Mr D, a developer/integrator. Mr E, who we met before, tell Mr D that Mr C indicated that Mr C isn't getting enough "direction" from the developers/integrators. Mr E tells Mr C that there is some dissatisfaction from Mr D about the quality of Mr C's work.

A 2yr scheduled period of interleaved development and test is cancelled.

A "reliability improvement program" developed by the developer/integrator is wound back and shut down.

Nil response from Mr E to a suggestion from developer/integrator that
knowledgeable people from customer people and integrator/developer people
come to integrator/developer headquarters and all think about how to integrate what already exists.

i would say so

Are they liberals? or conservatives, because here in Canada they could be either. Threaten to farm it out to China and kick out their butts and see if it gets any results. Chrysler made no threats, they just went. Bourgeois just want cheap labor anyway.