McCain May Seek Boeing Repayments in Plane Scandal

[PhiPsiRuss]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co. may have to repay any ill-gotten gains in the Pentagon's biggest contracting scandal in more than a decade, Senate Armed Services Committee member John McCain said on Friday.

McCain, in a stinging indictment of a stalled Air Force drive to get modified Boeing 767s as refueling tankers, said he planned to "find out how much money we can reclaim if necessary on behalf of taxpayers" from contracting abuses confessed to by ex-Air Force weapons buyer Darleen Druyun.

The Arizona Republican, who heads the Commerce Committee, said in a Senate floor speech he would take a fresh look at the entire Pentagon procurement process starting in January.

Druyun admitted to a federal judge last month she improperly steered more than $6 billion of Air Force contracts to Boeing since 2000 before joining the company as a $250,000-a-year vice president in January 2003.

Among other things, she said she had agreed to pay more than she thought justified for a planned initial batch of 100 tankers as a "parting gift" to the Chicago-based company, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier.

"What kind of a system is it that allows such a thing to take place over a period of years," McCain thundered.

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This scandal has more depth than is being reported. These 767s would replace 40 year old aircraft. Its reasonable to expect that these 767s could be used for 40+ years as well. If the Air Force proceeds with the 767s, they'll be buying yesterday's technology. Production of the 767 will soon come to an end, and be replaced with the much more advanced 7E7 Dreamliner. This new airplane is the one that the Air Force should buy, and not lease.

[AlphaSigOU]

Boeing is just starting to offer a dedicated cargo version of their Boeing 777-200 aircraft. Wouldn't be too difficult to modify it into a tanker.

DoD is gonna be up shit creek without a paddle if there is no replacement tanker for the geriatric KC-135s - you can only rebuild the sonsabitches so many times in the depot. And Lockheed just got shot down trying to market Airbus tankers under their brand name.

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU
Boeing is just starting to offer a dedicated cargo version of their Boeing 777-200 aircraft. Wouldn't be too difficult to modify it into a tanker.

DoD is gonna be up shit creek without a paddle if there is no replacement tanker for the geriatric KC-135s - you can only rebuild the sonsabitches so many times in the depot. And Lockheed just got shot down trying to market Airbus tankers under their brand name.

The 777 is too big and expensive to replace the KC-135s. Its a good eventual replacement for the KC-10s, however.

When the Air Force settles on an airframe of this size (707, 767, 7E7,) it will use if for a wide range of applications. I believe that its best to use an advanced airframe like the 7E7 because its quieter and much more energy efficient. These are qualities that directly translate into more effective performance in a tanker, as well as other roles like electronic warfare.

The time difference between when the proposed 767 tankers would enter service and when the 7E7 will enter production is very small. I believe that its worth waiting this time difference to buy (and not lease) the better aircraft. Especially when we know that it will probably be used for 40+ years.

[PhiPsiRuss]

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

Air Force Secretary James G. Roche asked a lobbyist for Boeing Co. to use the company's Washington contacts to "quash" a deputy undersecretary of defense and make him "pay an appropriate price" for objecting to the Air Force's decision to lease Boeing 767 tanker aircraft, according to e-mails released yesterday by a Republican senator critical of the tanker deal.

Roche also pressured independent military cost analysts who questioned the high price of the lease, described other internal Pentagon critics as "animals," and ridiculed executives at European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS) and its Airbus division, the consortium that offered a competing plan, the e-mails show. He told his top public relations aide to "blow . . . away" the EADS chairman for raising questions about the Air Force decision to work with Boeing.

At one point in the three-year Air Force campaign for the lease, Roche e-mailed a friend at Raytheon Co., "Privately between us: Go Boeing!"

The rest of this article is here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...3815_2004nov19