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Air Force Procurement Radio!
By Charlie
You know what I'm sick of hearing during my drive to and from work in the DC area?
Radio ads either promoting or trashing the recent Air Force contract imbroglio involving its tanker fleet. In case you haven't been paying attention / or you have an interesting life, here is the backstory:
Northrop Grumman Corp and its European partner EADS beat out Boeing Co to win a $35 billion order for 179 refueling tankers in February, but the Pentagon decided to reopen the competition after government auditors found significant errors in the Air Force's handling of the process.Lawmakers supporting both teams have spoken out about the contested tanker competition and sent letters to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, while the companies continue to blast each other's offerings in dueling newspaper advertisements.
Now this fight has spilled onto my news/traffic/weather radio in DC that I NEED to listen to. Here is the latest:
The competition for a $35 billion Air Force contract to make aerial refueling tankers was already ugly, but an advertisement airing on local radio this morning aimed for the kneecaps.A group calling itself “Alabamians for America’s Tanker” draws on Boeing’s sore points – like the last tanker scandal in which company official Darleen Druyun wound up in jail – and takes them one step further.
“The reason we are still trying to replace our aging refueling tankers is because Boeing executives were involved in a scandal of bribery and cheating in the last bid,” according to an unofficial transcript of one of the ads. “Our Air Force is working hard to protect our country but it appears that Boeing's corporate policy is ‘if Boeing can't win no one can’...and that means our troops lose.”
There is audio at the link (if you want to hear it...) If you can think of a more boring topic to take to the air over, you couldn't do much better than debating the fine print in an Air Force procurement deal....
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Comments
You think it's bad up there, I drive thru Mobile AL. All the time! You would think the Great Deppression is fixing to hit the Mobile area!
Probably the underlying reason for the choice of EADS/Northrop was Boeing's corruption. It delayed the the entire aquisition program 5 years. There was more than the Darleen Druyun in the tanker bid. There was Tom Daschel's wife who was a high priced lobbyist for Boeing. Congressional pressure led to the grossly unfavorable (to the AF) lease deal. Daschel said it wasn't a conflict of interest, so it wasn't. He was majority leader and controlled the ethics committee and that was that.
The tanker scandal was one of two at the time. The other involved the massive theft of launch vehicle documents from Martin-Marietta by an engineer who was subsequently hired by Boeing.
Memories linger. Yes you are supposed to start contract evaluations with a clean sheet of paper. But you never totally forget when you are dealing with scumballs.
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I agree. Enough! What they need is gun commercials...