There’s Boeing and their lobbyists again.. the Northrup plane was a better plane, and was actually going to employ MORE Americans than the Boeing plane. Lesson: If you want to successfully bid on military contracts, you need to own the generals.
I have a friend pretty high up at the Pentagon who says it’s all about who’s pockets got lined the most....funny Loren Thompson, the analyst who first said the Northrop plane was the best, all of a sudden last week said “oh excuse me, the Boeing plane is the best” - it’s a pretty sad state when our military is NOT getting the best but getting what the pols have been paid to push....we down here in Mobile are shocked over this decision....now it will be 3-4 years AGAIN before a tanker contract is awarded and basically the GAO has said to hell with our war fighters....
This is a valuable post. I wonder how much $$$ is going to pass from one pocket to another. My late father, when retired from the AF, administered contracts as a civilian employee. He detested the influence of politicians and other vested interests on the lives of servicemen and service women.
Sure...don't want to inject any facts here, but...
McCain's drive to preserve competition "put pressure on the Air Force to keep Northrop engaged," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based research group.
"The resulting concessions apparently skewed the selection process against Boeing," said Thompson, a defense industry consultant with close ties to the Pentagon.
"Much of the way that this contract was decided was heavily influenced by McCain," added Richard Aboulafia of Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy.
Do you seriously want to make political influence an issue?
Agree
and was actually going to employ MORE Americans than the Boeing plane.
Disagree. The KC-767AT would have sustained 28,707 jobs, while the Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-30 would have sustained 14,353 jobs. Both are a far cry from the "44,000 jobs" claimed by both sides.