Boeing Cries Foul, Dems Pile on McCain Update
By Rizzuto

Fri Mar 07, 2008 - A lot of hay has been made about the awarding of a defense contract (KC-45A) to Northrop Grumman over Boeing. The contracts calls for civilian airliners to be converted into mid-air refueling tankers for military use. The Boeing to use the 767, while Northrop Grumman would use the Airbus A330.

Two loud voices have emerged from the left to point a finger directly at Senator John McCain as to why this 100 billion dollar contract went to the foreign based defense contractor, those of Congressman John Murtha and Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi has expressed fears of outsourced work:

While Pelosi refrained from blaming McCain, she said that because McCain intervened in the Air Force’s dealings, “we have a situation … where this work may be outsourced.”

 Murtha his similarly attacked McCain.

Of course there is very little truth to Pelosi’s & Murtha’s claims that jobs are going to be outsourced, as a matter of fact, the only place that jobs will be outsourced from will be Murtha’s district in PA, where Boeing has a corporate headquarters. Boeing has rewarded Murtha handsomely in the past for delivering defense contracts to the tune of $27,300 for Murtha’s 2002 reelection campaign. In addition, Murtha’s top contributor DRS Technologies, a Boeing subcontractor, is Murtha’s top campaign contributor, at a whopping $50,000.

In framing Boeing as the paragon of domestic job creation and patriotism, Murtha and Pelosi are both being dishonest. The Boeing 767 tanker includes parts manufactured in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and Italy.

The Northrop Grumman victory actually stands to create 2,000 high paying jobs in Florida, as well more at GE engine plants in North Carolina and Ohio.

The Irony I see in this matter is the fact that the left has been crying for years now about the no-bid contract received by Halliburton, yet when Boeing loses a contract because of a bidding process put in place by John McCain, they cry foul. Oh the irony.

Update (ampdead): Some background on the tanker fiasco from In From the Cold:

Fact is the competition apparently won by the Northrop-Grumman/EADS team came four years after the Pentagon’s first effort to acquire new tankers. In 2003, the Air Force announced plans to lease 100 767 tankers from Boeing, a proposal that also attracted Congressional attention.

With Arizona Senator John McCain in the lead, House and Senate leaders pounced on the proposed lease, noting that it would be more expensive than buying new aircraft. The deal was subsequently derailed by revelations that the Air Force’s former top procurement civilian, Darlene Druyun, had been recruited by Boeing during lease negotiations. She later served a nine-month prison sentence on corruption charges.

In hindsight, McCain’s criticism of the original tanker deal was certainly valid. And, it could also be argued that re-opening of the contract resulted in a better deal for the Air Force and the taxpayer, through the acquisition of a larger aircraft (the KC-30) with greater fuel off-load and transport capabilities.

But the process also delayed acquisition of badly-needed refueling planes, designed to replace aircraft purchased during the Eisenhower administration. We’ve written extensively about problems with aging KC-135Es, assigned mostly to Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units. Some of those aircraft are no longer flyable and their replacements won’t enter the USAF inventory for another 5-6 years.







RELATED TOPICS: Democrat | Military Hardware | John McCain | Nancy Pelosi | ALL TOPICS

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Comments : 2 Comments

DiscordantPhilosopher commented, on March 8, 2008 at 7:16 p.m.:

Why is the only concern where the jobs go, not whether or not were getting the best product available for the military?

Rizzuto commented, on March 8, 2008 at 7:35 p.m.:

Because it's an economy election, not a security election.