The Air Force will have to wait even longer to get its new fleet of refueling tankers. After the first bidding process was scrapped a few years ago, because Boeing bribed Air Force contractors, and the second bidding process was overturned because Boeing didn't like the outcome (Northrop Grumman was the surprise winner), now the third bidding process (run by Defense Secretary Gates) has been killed because Boeing kept asking for delays and finally Gates decided it was "too controversial" too continue under his administration.
No one in the Bush Administration has any spine. Northrop won the bid fair and square with a better design. They should have told Boeing to stuff it three times over. In fact, after the first fiasco, why was Boeing permitted to compete at all? Can't these people do anything right? The first "MBA" president has been a total failure.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Back to Square One.
Posted by Dr. Strangelove at 12:52 PM
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Whenever American regulators complain about EU subsidies to Airbus, European point to the seemingly endless stream of sweetheart defense contracts that Boeing gets.
I believe that the Northrup Grumman decision was overturned by a court, not the DOD.
The Northrup Grumman decision was not overturned by a court. The GAO was the technical actor, but they most surely did not do it on their own.
As someone who (very) briefly worked for the GAO, I am not sure you are correct about all that. I once sat in on a meeting where people discussed abolishing the Marines to save money. We quietly walked out. They tend to treasure their independence. I would wager the GAO was *not* taking into account political realities when it threw a grenade down a gopher hole.
Alas, GAO did not do this on its own. After the bid was awarded to NG, Boeing got hopping mad and sent its Senators and representatives doing everything they could to overturn the decision. They applied all sorts of pressure everywhere. And the GAO's report was as impartial as Bush v. Gore.
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