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While I think the USAF will be getting the best tanker available four years from now, they really needed to have something available five years ago. As a result of not getting any new tankers, they've had to keep the ones they've got flying lots more hours than expected due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The KC-135R's have to go into the depot for heavy maintenance every four or five years for something like 9 months. The GAO had a report suggesting that with about 430 KC-135R and C-135R aircraft in the USAF inventory that about 100 National Guard KC-135E's could be converted to KC-135R's and just get engines with planes entering depot maintenance. That way perfectly good CFM-56 engines wouldn't just be sitting on aircraft undergoing mainentance.

While I think the USAF will be getting the best tanker available four years from now, they really needed to have something available five years ago.

And Boeing probably could have won that contract in a fair competition. By paying the bribes, they ended up tainting the whole deal.