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Too Big, Too Heavy
Human Events ^ | 3/24 | Jed Babbin

Posted on 06/19/2008 5:26:15 PM PDT by Paul Ross

Too Big, Too Heavy

by Jed Babbin, Human Events
Posted: 03/24/2008

The mission of the US Air Force is to fly and to fight. Everyone in the Air Force’s job falls into one of three categories: to do the flying and fighting, to command those who do, or to support them. Part of supporting the warriors is to buy the best aircraft to accomplish the mission at lowest risk. Which is why the Air Force’s decision to buy urgently-needed tanker aircraft from the Northrop Grumman – EADS consortium must be reversed.

That decision -- announced on February 29 -- could not be judged quickly or without consulting with experts on both sides of the controversy. Air mobility experts, two former chiefs of staff of the Air Force and other experienced warfighters gave me very different opinions.

My reluctant conclusion is that the Air Force’s decision is profoundly wrong. I base it on two facts: first, the warfighters need a tanker that isn’t so big and heavy that it is unable to deploy on many of the world’s airfields; and second, the Air Force is taking an unreasonably high risk on the NG– EADS aircraft.

Congressional whiners and populist pundits are suffering a case of the vapors over the decision to award the contract (for an estimated $40 billion) to NG-EADS because American jobs will be exported to France. To be sure, US jobs and tax dollars will go to the subsidized French Airbus company -- a subsidiary of EADS -- whose A-330 will be modified into the tankers. But it was Congress that imposed a procurement system under which the Air Force was required to have competition for the sole US company capable of building the tanker -- Boeing -- and it is Congress that enabled foreign companies to compete.

Tankers aren’t glamorous. They are big, heavy and drab. But without them, America would not be a superpower. There are not that many places in the world in which American combat aircraft can land to refuel. Without tankers showing up in the right places at the right times, fighters can’t fight, bombers can’t bomb and transport aircraft can’t deliver troops, supplies, or disaster relief to far corners of the world in a matter of hours.

Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper (who has consulted for Northrop Grumman on other programs) told me that he believed the tanker procurement was “squeaky clean” and that the warfighters would get what they need from the NG-EADS aircraft because it met all the requirements set by the Air Force.

Air mobility experts point out that we don’t run out of bulk cargo and passenger-carrying capacity. The Civil Reserve Air Fleet -- civilian airliners and cargo aircraft that can be called into service by the Air Force in a crisis -- provide tremendous capacity to carry people and cargo, but not jet fuel. But our warfighting ability is limited by the number of tankers and how and where they can be deployed.

Deployability is critical because tankers are bad tenants. Most runways can’t handle their weight and their size limits the number that can be stationed on any airfield. The bigger and heavier the tankers are, the fewer airfields can accommodate them.

The Boeing tanker, a version of the 767 jetliner, has a maximum takeoff weight of 395,000 pounds. It’s 159 feet long and has a wingspan of 156 feet. The NG-EADS Airbus 330 tanker’s max weight is 507,000 pounds. It is 192 feet long and has a 197-foot wingspan. My best scientific wild guess is that the NG-EADS aircraft will be unable to operate out of at least 20% of the airfields that could accommodate the right-sized Boeing tanker.

How the Air Force allowed this to happen is nothing short of bizarre. The warfighters are supposed to control the “requirements” -- the criteria the aircraft must meet -- and the procurement pukes are supposed to apply those criteria to choose which aircraft will be bought. But somehow, in mid-stream, the criteria were changed without the warfighters’ knowing about it. Critical criteria including maximum takeoff weight and clearance between wingtips while parked were changed to skew the competition to favor the larger Airbus.

Gen. Ronald Fogelman -- former Air Force chief of staff (and before that, commander of what is now Air Mobility Command which operates the tankers) is a Boeing consultant. He disputed that idea: “Anybody who thinks that somehow they’re going to dual-use these airplanes in a crisis and get benefit from both tanker and cargo-carrying capacity just doesn’t understand the way these things get used.”

Fogelman’s point is well-taken. For every hour a tanker is diverted to other purposes, every other aircraft that depends on the tankers has one less hour to fly.

One senior retired officer who requested anonymity told me that when the changes were revealed he called several officers high in the chain of command and they all reacted by asking “what are you talking about?” Now they know.

The other huge problem is the risk inherent in the winner’s inexperience and plan to build the aircraft. Boeing tankers have been delivering fuel in flight for over 50 years. NG-EADS has delivered fuel to an aircraft in flight through a “boom”, the crane-like device that is extended from the back of a tanker and through which fuel is delivered, precisely once. And NG-EADS promises to assemble the aircraft in a new plant in Alabama that isn’t built, using a new workforce that hasn’t ever built a tanker.

I’ve been down this path before.

Seventeen years ago, I sat in my Pentagon office wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. A top-secret Navy attack aircraft program (which we know now was the A-12) had turned into a disaster. I hadn’t been cleared into the program, so despite my fancy security clearances and title I couldn’t even find out what had happened far less try to fix it. My boss had done a bad job of judging how the program was doing and had told the Secretary of Defense (a gent named Cheney) that all was well when it wasn’t. The big boss had passed that opinion on to Congress with embarrassing results.

My puzzlement ended when a familiar large head leaned into my office. Its owner smiled and asked, “Jed, you got a minute?” This friend, whom I count among my mentors, was a retired Air Force four-star general and had been commander of Air Force Systems Command. AFSC ran all aircraft procurement for USAF, so he knew a thing or two about building airplanes.

The explanation he gave was horribly simple. My boss had been shown an empty factory floor by the CEO of General Dynamics (now a part of Northrop Grumman), on which chalk rectangles marked the spots where specialized machinery would be placed to produce the A-12. And the CEO told my boss that they’d be turning out aircraft in 18 months or less.

Which sounded perfectly reasonable to my boss, whose previous career had been in the automobile industry. He was used to retooling factories and retraining workers every year to build new cars. He didn’t know you can’t do that for complex aircraft. It takes 18-24 months just to get the special tooling and test equipment (known in the aerospace biz as “STTE”) you need, and only then can you train your workforce to use it. My boss fell for the CEO’s yarn and the A-12 program produced a lawsuit but no aircraft.

NG-EADS promises to deliver about fifty tankers in the next five years. The component sections will be built in European plants and shipped to Mobile, Alabama to be assembled. But they haven’t broken ground for the Mobile factory yet. Whatever empty lot is chosen can’t be turned into the KC-45 plant for at least two years. Then -- if you make the false assumption that you know exactly what STTE you need now, and order it today -- you still have to install it, hire and train your workforce and organize to assemble and test-fly the aircraft.

If they can deliver fifty aircraft from Mobile in five years I’ll parachute from the 50th at 20,000 feet wearing my tuxedo. The risk inherent in this scheme is enormous, and it means that the NG-EADS aircraft is a huge mission risk measured in time. They will be years late in producing the aircraft, the costs will increase greatly, and tankers won’t be where we need them when we do.

The Government Accountability Office will rule on the Boeing protest against this contract in the next several months. But the GAO -- as I know from three decades of trying cases like this before it -- cannot rule on anything more than the legalities of what the Air Force did. Its authority does not extend to judging the effect on our warfighting capability.

Before GAO acts, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates must. He should call in all the combatant commanders and all of the Air Mobility Command former bosses he can find who aren’t working for one of the competitors. Get to the bottom of why the warfighters were apparently ignored. And fix this before billions of dollars and precious years are spent on what may reduce the Air Force’s ability to fly and to fight.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007) and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at jbabbin@eaglepub.com.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: aerospace; babbin; boeing; bttt; eads; tanker; usaf
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To: Always Independent
Them worrying about being locked out of GPS is like us worrying about being locked out of spare parts. Unlikely but it could happen.

I am not happy with a “competition” that did not follow the scoring that it laid out. Are you. How can anybody know what to bid if the scoring is changed after the fact?

The jobs lost. Lest see if the A330 is all ready to go (which people keep saying on this thread) then NG hasn't had diddly squat to do with the design. So all the design jobs were not here.

Knowing how to design a large airframe (not to mention build it and test it)is an important strategic asset. It shouldn't be outsourced.

I keep wondering it the NG cheerleaders would be as excited if for the next aircraft carrier Boeing got a Korean container ship builder (obviously better than US ship builders since we don't build them) to build a hull and say 49% of the value. Then stuff it with US content to get it to 50.1% and then put a US flag on it. Let's move the jobs to Louisiana and then play LA vs CT. (or wherever we build the carriers).

These are obviously strategic issues. If it is close we should buy American. the Euros don't have a hard time with that (the French and Brits are teaming to build a couple of carriers, couldn't NG have built those?)

Obviously this was close. Aren't you the least bit bothered that the AF leaked talking points before the losing bidder was briefed to assert that it wasn't close? Does that sound like the work of dispassionate analysts who are confident in their work?

101 posted on 07/02/2008 6:34:59 PM PDT by djwright (I know who's my daddy, do you?)
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To: Always Independent
“EADS Airbus 330 tanker’s max weight is 507,000 pounds”

KC-10 Extender:
Maximum Fuel Load: 356,000 pounds (160,200 kilograms)... So the Northrop Grumman offering is too big?

For the non-strategic role it is.

The KC-10 is essentially a strategic re-fueler. And the bid was not supposed to be a replacement for the KC-10.

It was supposed to be a replacement for the much-older KC-135.

And besides the nearly-as-heavy EADS plane's weight, note these key discriminators of fuselage length and wingspan...the MRT-330 (which is the plane being offered) the EADs entry is bigger. I.e.,

General characteristics
Crew: 3: 2 pilots, 1 AAR operator
Capacity: 226-280[14] troops
Length: 59.69 m (195 ft 10 in) [Fourteen Feet Longer]
Wingspan: 60.3 m (197 ft 10 in) [Thirty-two feet Wider
Height: 17.89 m (58 ft 8 in)
Wing area: 361.6 m² (3892 ft²)
Empty weight: 120,500 kg (265,657 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 230,000 kg (507,063 lb)

102 posted on 07/07/2008 1:31:48 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Always Independent
I believe they built their own GPS because the were afraid of getting locked out in the time of war and the US was not providing/allowing access to the most precise capability of the system.

And why, pray tell would an "ally" be locked out, h'mmmm?

Perhaps they were already planning on being adversaries....eh?

103 posted on 07/07/2008 1:45:21 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Paul Ross

Because I believe at the time the AF was not providing access to the most precise positioning capability of the system. There was some writings about this. For one they didn’t want the wrongg countries to have that access so they had to lockout all but those given access codes to. There was some controversy about it which led the allies to develop their own system in the first place.


104 posted on 07/07/2008 2:04:40 PM PDT by Always Independent
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To: MHalblaub
I can sum it up in one word: more.

I can sum it up as Less. Less fuel efficiency. Less survivability. Less infrastructure compatibility. Less speed. Less American content. Less, Less, Less.

105 posted on 07/07/2008 2:18:38 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: MHalblaub
GAO denied exactly that claim by Boeing.

Actually, outright PREJUDICIAL treatment was confirmed and sustained as a grounds for rejection of the whole decision:

As explained below, we find that the agency’s selection of Northrop Grumman’s proposal as reflecting the best value to the government was undermined by a number of prejudicial errors that call into question the Air Force’s decision that Northrop Grumman’s proposal was technically acceptable and its judgment concerning the comparative technical advantages accorded Northrop Grumman’s proposal. In addition, we find a number of errors in the agency’s cost evaluation that result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest evaluated most probable life cycle costs to the government.

A good illustration of the prejudicial treatment came down to the fuel receiver numbers, which your spider chart purports to proclaim advantages to the KC-30 on...when the GAO concluded:

Nevertheless, the record does not establish that the SSAC and SSA, in considering those strengths and weaknesses, applied the relative weights identified in the RFP for the various SRD requirements (under which the KPPs were most important). Moreover, the record does not show any consideration by the SSAC or SSA of the fact that Boeing’s proposal was evaluated as satisfying significantly more SRD requirements than Northrop Grumman’s.

106 posted on 07/07/2008 4:02:35 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Always Independent
For one they didn’t want the wrongg countries to have that access so they had to lockout all but those given access codes to. There was some controversy about it which led the allies to develop their own system in the first place.

Controversy? Where is your controversy about the PROVEN proliferation against the U.S. by EADs?

"Allies" ?

B.S.

107 posted on 07/07/2008 4:09:54 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Always Independent
For one they didn’t want the wrongg countries to have that access so they had to lockout all but those given access codes to.

Like EADs and its trading buddies...

Check the facts:

Tainted Tanks – EADS comes with a pernicious past
Written by David N. Bossie Friday, 11 April 2008

Dwight Eisenhower once observed, “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” The danger of weakness in prosecuting the War on Terror brings to mind the wisdom of Eisenhower’s prescient observation.

Consider the recent decision by the Department of Defense to award a $35 billion contract to build America’s fleet of refueling tankers to the French-owned European Aerospace Defense and Space Company (EADS). In one of the most colossal blunders of the struggle against the terrorists, we have handed over the future of a vital tool in the projection of U.S. power over to bureaucrats and politicians in Russia and France.

The tanker contract has sparked bipartisan outrage in Congress. A crescendo of opposition is now building, from conservative and pro-family U.S. Senator Sam Brownback to liberal Democrat Jack Murtha, to reverse the decision or deny funding to the Pentagon to implement it.

The lack of ease that accompanies the decision is hardly surprising; the catalogue of horrors at EADS reads like a “how not to” primer in a business-school ethics class. The company has a long and sordid history of bribing governments to purchase their airplanes, especially when competing with U.S. aerospace firms. Former CIA Director James Woolsey has called the practice rampant, and concluded that it was an integral part of EADS’ corporate culture. A European Parliament report in 2003 confirmed these corrupt practices, and that EADS has been embroiled in bribery scandals in Canada, Belgium, and Syria.

According to a New York Times report just last October, a French financial regulator turned over evidence of insider trading by senior EADS executives to prosecutors. The executives failed to inform the public about production delays in the A-380 jumbo jet while they quietly dumped their own stock. When the delays became public, unwitting shareholders watched their holdings plummet in value. The co-CEO and co-chairman of EADS resigned under pressure, and now some EADS executives may face indictments.

Even more worrisome is the power grab by Vladimir Putin, who is buying up the depressed shares of EADS like a corporate raider. The prospect of the authoritarian Russian leader, whose political opponents are harassed and jailed while prying journalists turn up missing or murdered, having a heavy hand in EADS affairs is deeply troubling. Russia opposed the invasion of Iraq and has sought to undermine U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The most troubling aspect of the tanker contract is the danger it poses to U.S. national security. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, EADS has been a leading proliferator of weapons and technology to some of the most hostile regimes in the world, including Iran and Venezuela. When the U.S. formally objected to EADS selling cargo and patrol planes to Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez, EADS tried to circumvent U.S. law by stripping American-built components from the aircraft. Chavez is now building an oil refinery in Cuba to keep Castro’s failed Communist state afloat, funding terrorists seeking the violent overthrow of Colombia’s government, and recently meddled in the presidential election in Argentina with secretly smuggled cash contributions. If EADS had its way, Chavez would now be advancing his anti-American designs in the Western hemisphere with U.S. technology and components.

EADS entanglements with Venezuela make the Pentagon’s decision to waive the Berry Amendment, which prohibits the export of technology that might be developed during the building of the tanker to third parties, indefensible. Such technology falling into the hands of state sponsor of terrorism would devastate our war fighters.

And such a scenario is hardly unreasonable. EADS executives recently attended an air show in Iran and were caught red-handed trying to sell helicopters with military applications. When confronted, an EADS executive said the company was not bound by the U.S. arms embargo against Iran. EADS also sold nuclear components vital to exploding a nuclear device to an Asian company that in turn sold them to an Iranian front operation.

There is no question that America desperately needs to replace its aging tanker fleet, which dates to the time of Eisenhower, with new aircraft. Given the thousands of sorties flown by U.S. fighters and bombers over Iraq and Afghanistan, the tanker has become a critical tool in winning the war on terror. But outsourcing this vital aircraft to a proliferator of technology to our worst enemies, with partial ownership by the French and Russian governments, is an act of military malpractice.

Relying on foreign governments that are wary of U.S. power, as long-term suppliers for a strategic program so critical to projecting U.S. power around the globe is short-sighted and foolish. France has not demonstrated that it is a reliable ally of the United States, and EADS has not been a reliable supplier.

EADS must end its bribery problem, resolve its insider trading scandal, stop its proliferation of weaponry to bad actors like Chavez and Ahmadinejad, kick the Kremlin out of its board room, and stop using anti-competitive trade practices like subsidies from foreign governments. Then — and only then — can it compete for U.S. defense systems with U.S. contractors on a level playing field.

Lenin once said that capitalists would sell him the rope with which he would hang them. In this case, the Department of Defense is buying from EADS a rope that it might someday find around its neck. The Pentagon should cut its losses and reverse this ill-advised plan.

— David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United.


108 posted on 07/07/2008 4:17:06 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Paul Ross

I didn’t create it. Just recalling what I’ve read. If I can find any info on it I’d be glad to share it but it happened some years ago when GPS systems was first starting to be fielded. If the documentation is so ironclad for corrupt practices, where are the charges being filed against them for it. Hey I’m aware of EADS methods to obtain market share in the commercial airline sales and hardly approve. NG would probably went with another builder. If there was one! But NG is the Prime on this contract offering you can disput it all you want, but it is a fact.


109 posted on 07/07/2008 4:20:27 PM PDT by Always Independent
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To: Always Independent
NG would probably went with another builder. If there was one!

They could have built their own. If they were the real prime.

110 posted on 07/07/2008 4:28:29 PM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Paul Ross


I’ve been down this path before.

Seventeen years ago, I sat in my Pentagon office wondering what went
wrong and how to fix it. A top-secret Navy attack aircraft program
(which we know now was the A-12) had turned into a disaster.

Ah, yes, “The Flying Dorito”.

A-12 (Avenger II)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-12_Avenger_II


111 posted on 07/07/2008 4:33:35 PM PDT by VOA
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To: Paul Ross
I can sum it up as Less.

Less fuel efficiency.
This is 767.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb2008062_062876.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories

Less survivability.
None KC-135 was lost due to enemy action. 62 out of 761 were lost in accidents. The issue was a software feature. Keep in mind both planes are tankers.

Less infrastructure compatibility.
Like C-17?

Less speed.
Don't mix up certified air speeds for civil aircrafts with possible airspeeds for non existing tankers which ancestors got problems with fluttering wings. KC-767A for Italy is still not in service.

Less American content.
Like 787? Boeing thinks it's better to have less American content.

Less, Less, Less.

You want less? Buy KC-767!

112 posted on 07/08/2008 6:27:29 AM PDT by MHalblaub ("Easy my friends, when it comes to the point it is only a drawing made by a non believing Dane...")
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To: MHalblaub
Less fuel efficiency. This is 767.

False. 24% more fuel efficient. End of the line for your passenger/fuel equation. And your "aging plane" issue fails to grasp that it is an ARTIFACT of your buddies SUBSIDIES.

That is why the Europeans have newer planes. They subsidize EADS, Airbus, and their bloody airlines.

And they put serious economic pressure on the profitability/survivability of the U.S. plane fleets.

And how is a real commercial free enterprise supposed to compete, h'mmmm?

What a travesty.

Thanks for posting that link. It explains a lot more about you than you realize. Your article pinponts your biasses and your miscomprehension of the issues.

113 posted on 07/08/2008 8:36:29 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: MHalblaub
Less survivability. None KC-135 was lost due to enemy action. 62 out of 761 were lost in accidents. The issue was a software feature. Keep in mind both planes are tankers.

Not a software feature. A real world concern. The KC-135 is merely drastically more survivable than your plane. It was built for the Cold War. Your plane flunked outright. Five of Eight factors. The Boeing PASSED all Eight.

In the absence of some kind of interfering EADS/Political corruption, that should have been game, set, match for Boeing.

And the loss rate due to accidents should make the fueling deficiencies, both boom envelope, and its lack of suitabilty for the wide variety of fixed wing craft, and deficient nav lights, and inability to do an emergency break away and fly UPWARDS a more serious issue yet. Its a deadly flying coffin for the crews who would have to try and refuel with the Airbus.

Again, if the considerations of the WAR FIGHTERS were taken into account, that should have been Game, Set, and Match.

Boeing has the superior offering. By far.

114 posted on 07/08/2008 8:44:27 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: MHalblaub
Less speed. Don't mix up certified air speeds for civil aircrafts with possible airspeeds for non existing tankers which ancestors got problems with fluttering wings.

The KC-10 is nonexistent? (and its speed is significantly faster than your "modern" plane by an inarguable degree) And likewise the KC-767 is non-existent? With four already delivered? And a REAL boom in prospect? Unlike yours? And with upgraded REAL wings available from U.S. fabrication...not French?

As for the KC-767A for Italy is still not in service.

Due to Italy's own misproduction. And this is just more proof that you don't and shouldn't outsource from Europe. Look at the brou-ha-ha between the French workers and Spanish workers at Airbus right now. Total SNAFU. It's getting uglier every day over there.

115 posted on 07/08/2008 8:50:40 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: MHalblaub
Less American content. Like 787? Boeing thinks it's better to have less American content.

B.S.

They didn't want to do it. And they aren't saving labor doing it. But they are getting vitally needed contributory PARTNER FINANCING FOR THE RISK [Note Japan building the high tech wings...far more advanced than Airbus can duplicate], plus perhaps most significantly, assured MARKET SHARE [From Japan to Italy, sales, sales, sales], that they otherwise were losing irreversibly due to the subsidized cheaper EADS/Airbus corruption machine.

Boeing would have dearly loved to make the whole plane under one roof and capture all the profit that it is now forced to share broadly with its partners. But the market, where there is no defenses for a true U.S. manufacturer against foreign manipulation and subsidized game playing, and outright IP thefts, de facto tariff cheating and bribery corruption, left them little choice for their commercial gamble on this beyond-the-state-of-the-art betting of the ranch.

116 posted on 07/08/2008 8:57:41 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Always Independent
If the documentation is so ironclad for corrupt practices, where are the charges being filed against them for it.

Uh, because their corrupt practices were SOP for the French...which even went so far as to encourage it legally with TAX DEDUCTIBILITY FOR BRIBES.

The French only reluctantly...severely reluctantly... signed onto the OECD requirements* that it stop doing that...just SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS ago.

And in view of the EADS bribery cases just last year in Austria, it would appear that they still haven't quite got the hang of not bribing as a routine SOP.

* 9/22/00

OECD Antibribery Convention: French Implementation Completed

France deposited its instruments of ratification of the December 17, 1997 OECD Antibribery Convention with the Secretary-General of the OECD on July 31, 2000. This completes an implementing process which lasted 7 months, resulting in the adoption on June 20, 2000 by the National Assembly of the GOF draft implementing legislation on its third and final reading. The OECD Convention will become enforceable in France on September 29, 2000, 60 days after the instruments of ratification have been deposited with the OECD. Implementing legislation, which outlaws past and future bribes and their tax deductibility, is code contained in Articles 435-3 and 435-4 of a new chapter on international corruption of the French penal code.


117 posted on 07/08/2008 9:15:09 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Paul Ross

You must have an ax to grind against northrop grumman. I ‘don’t and don’t have a problem with boeing either. But you have to admit that they don’t have the most honest of practices either. hence the tanker lease deal and look at what the pulled with Lockheed on the launcher contract. Possessing and using STOLEN propietary Lockheed information to win the contract. NG hasn’t been a saint either. They had an incident in Korea with a hotel deal.


118 posted on 07/08/2008 9:31:22 AM PDT by Always Independent
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To: MHalblaub; VOA; pissant; DoughtyOne; AuntB; Travis McGee; Jeff Head; ALOHA RONNIE; maui_hawaii; ...
Less, less, less. You want Less, buy the KC-767!

Yes, I want Less Bribery, and Less Corruption, and Less Foreign Outsourcing and Dependency, And Less Hypocrisy and Spin about the severe shortcomings of EADS and its plane:

Unlike EADS* evidently...

* Department of Defense Finds Catch-22 When Dealing With EADS
Michael Reilly - 5/5/2007

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. ‘That's some catch, that Catch-22,’ he observed. [1]

The reality of industrial globalization means that the United States will increasingly rely on foreign suppliers of military equipment. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as we know that our global suppliers want to be true defense partners, are trustworthy, and will compete fairly to provide the best value for American taxpayers and the best products for American warfighters.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has rightfully welcomed the move toward globalization. But, with the large-scale entry of the European Aeronautic, Defense and Space (EADS) consortium into the U.S. market, DoD is finding itself in a procurement Catch-22 that would have even Joseph Heller, the creator of the phrase, in awe.

The catch in this case holds that even though DoD personnel are sworn to protect our country, they must award contracts regardless of the political actions of companies from what the Defense Acquisition Guidebook calls “friendly foreign countries.” Though it seems crazy to buy products from a company such as EADS whose owners, executives, and workers politically undermine American defense and foreign policy, this catch makes it not only rational but legally binding. Espionage, bribery and other dirty practices [Milo:] ‘But it's not against the law to make a profit, is it? So it can't be against the law for me to bribe someone in order to make a fair profit, can it? No, of course not!’ He fell to brooding again, with a meek, almost pitiable distress. ‘But how will I know who to bribe?’ 'Oh you don't worry about that,’ Yossarian comforted…‘You make the bribe big enough and they’ll find you.’ [2] The French government owns 15 percent of EADS, and its industrial policy consists of espionage, bribery and other actions to give its favored companies an unfair advantage over American firms. By making EADS a substantial defense supplier, the United States would be rewarding the French government for years of espionage and bribery that inflicted billions of dollars of damage on the American aerospace industry.

EADS, precursors, and subsidiaries themselves also have a long history of bribing corrupt officials into buying its products instead of American ones. EADS and its subsidiaries have been the subject of bribe related scandals in Belgium, Canada, India, Kuwait, Switzerland, Syria,[3] and most recently Austria where one of its lobbyist is accused of paying 87,000 euros ($117,00) to the wife of an Austrian Air Force general overseeing a $2.7 billion contract won by an EADS subsidiary.[4]

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey confirmed seven years ago that Airbus bribed foreign officials to buy its planes. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed addressing European complaints about our Echelon electronic intelligence program, Woolsey said that the U.S. was not using Echelon to spy on European companies to steal their trade secrets. “Instead we were looking for evidence of bribery,” Woolsey said. He confirmed that Echelon was aimed partly at Airbus: “That’s right, my continental friends, we have spied on you because you bribe.”[5]

Woolsey added, “When we have caught you at it, we haven't said a word to the U.S. companies in the competition. Instead we go to the government you're bribing and tell its officials that we don't take kindly to such corruption. They often respond by giving the most meritorious bid (sometimes American, sometimes not) all or part of the contract. This upsets you, and sometimes creates recriminations between your bribers and your bribees, and this occasionally becomes a public scandal…” [6]

U.S. officials have a tough enough time guarding against fraud and corruption where the abuse is just on the part of individuals; it does not need to deal with companies where it is seemingly corporate policy.

Trying to supply America’s adversaries with weapons.

Milo shook his head with weary forbearance. ‘And [they] are not our enemies,’ he declared. ‘Oh, I know what you're going to say. Sure, we're at war with them. But [they] are also members in good standing of the syndicate, and it's my job to protect their rights as shareholders. Maybe they did start the war… but they pay their bills a lot more promptly than some allies of ours I could name.’ [7]

EADS tried to circumvent US law in bid to help Chavez. Last year, the Center for Security Policy cited EADS for its sales to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and in January, 2006, the U.S. invoked international arms trade regulations to stop EADS from selling its Spanish-built EADS CASA C-295 and CN-235 transport and patrol planes to Chavez. Under the regulations, known as ITAR, other countries cannot sell military products containing American-made components to third countries without U.S. approval. Since the EADS CASA planes contain dozens of U.S. parts, including engines and unique turboprops, the White House notified EADS and Spain of its objections.

Rather than stop its dealings with Chavez as a reliable U.S. defense partner would be expected to do, EADS immediately tried to circumvent ITAR by stripping out the American-made equipment and trying to find non-U.S. replacements. Only when it was clear that EADS could not come up with the substitute components did the deal officially fall through, in an October, 2006 announcement – nine months after President Bush invoked ITAR.

Working to arm China.

Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the European Union nations have largely stopped their military cooperation and arms sales to Beijing. Over the past few years though, EADS owners in France and its workers in Germany and Spain have agitated to end the embargo. This desire to fully open the technological floodgates was most recently evinced in March by French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who while in Japan, continued to declare that the ban was “illogical” and “paradoxical.” In fact, she later stated that China’s burgeoning military might was not a threat but that, “what is important is for China’s military power to be put to the service of peace.”[8] It should be noted that the French government is no mere shareholder in EADS; President Jacques Chirac has used his influence to hire and fire the company’s top executives and to intervene in management decisions.

Weapons and nuke parts to Iran. As if selling advanced military equipment to China was not bad enough, EADS is also marketing its wares to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, for example, Eurocopter representatives attended an air show in that country and were seen attempting to sell what they said were “civilian” helicopters.[9] However, astute observers noticed that EADS’ promotional videotape for the show was labeled “Navy” and that that it prominently featured a military helicopter. EADS official Michel Tripier when questioned why they were ignoring U.S. policy to isolate Iran said, “As a European company, we’re not supposed to take into account embargoes from the U.S.”

Perhaps even more worryingly, there are concerns that EADS may be inadvertently aiding the Iranian nuclear program. As late as 2005, the company was selling Nickel 63 and so-called “Tritium Targets” – both crucial to triggering a nuclear explosion – to the South Korean firm Kyung-Do Enterprises. Reportedly, unbeknownst to EADS, the South Koreans were then reselling the nuclear parts a company called Parto Namaje Tolua, a front for the state-owned Iranian firm Partoris.[10] Even if the sale was an accident, it is extremely worrying that EADS did not take the time to verify the end-user of the nuclear materials.

Pro-American marketing and advertising, Anti-American workforce

‘You’ll be all right,’ Yossarian assured him with confidence. ‘If you run into trouble, just tell everybody that the security of the country requires a strong domestic Egyptian-cotton speculating industry.’ ‘It does,’ Milo informed him solemnly. ‘A strong Egyptian-cotton speculating industry means a much stronger America.’ [Yossarian:] ‘Of course it does. And if that doesn't work, point out the great number of American families that depend on it for income.’ [11]

If you exchange the words Egyptian-cotton industry with European Aerospace-lobbying industry in Heller’s passage above, you would have a good summation of how EADS has justified its activities and marketed itself to the American public.

In recent years, EADS has been building assembly and service facilities in Alabama and securing the support of targeted congressional delegations. “The company has been busy building U.S. domestic political support for a program that would ultimately involve billions of dollars and thousands of jobs,” Air Force magazine reported in June, 2006. “The company also has been recruiting talent with the technical know-how (and political connections) to get deals done in Washington.” [12]

In reality the amount of American jobs EADS plans to create is miniscule compared to the huge number of jobs it provides to anti-American labor unions that form the backbones of some of Europe’s most powerful anti-American socialist parties.

Anti-American union workers in Germany. The German socialist IG Metall union represents workers at Airbus Deutschland. Faced with losing thousands of jobs to the current Airbus reorganization, IG Metall is hoping EADS aircraft will start winning large DoD contracts. But the union, as a matter of policy and pride (its flag is still the Soviet-era red banner), openly shows hatred of the United States. The May 2005 cover of its magazine Metall contains a cartoon of a bloodsucking insect grinning and tipping its Uncle Sam hat. In words reminiscent of Germany’s darkest era, Metall ripped American businesses as “bloodsuckers” and “parasites.”[13] When asked to renounce the grotesque depiction, IG Metall’s Chairman Juergen Peters responded by calling the insect cartoon “a good caricature” of Americans. [14]

EADS CASA workers in Spain: On the wrong side. In Spain, where the EADS CASA division manufactures a variant of the CN-235 for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program, the aircraft workers are even more militant than the Germans.

The EADS CASA’s main union, the General Confederation of Workers (CGT), is virulently opposed to the war on terror, to the United States, and to the NATO alliance. Its red-and-black anarcho-Marxist flag indicates an alliance of two forms of extremism, and its official Rojo y Negro (Red and Black) newsletter shows a militancy seldom seen any more in industrialized democracies.

• Stirring up extremism in Mexico. The CGT appears to back any radical movement in Mexico that opposes the Mexican government and the United States. The union openly supports both anarchist and communist causes in Mexico that seek to destabilize the southern border of the U.S. The union has its own “CGT Solidarity with Chiapas” committee to back the Marxist Zapatista guerrillas in the south of Mexico,[15] and publishes communiqués by the Clandestine Revolutionary Committee Indigenous Command of the Emiliano Zapata National Liberation Front (EZLN).[16]

• Globalizing Latin American protests against the United States. The CGT promotes the international networking of protests against the President of the United States. Last month the CGT spread anti-Bush propaganda to incite opposition to the American president’s South America visit as it denounced American “plans of imperialism for the region.” [17]

• Militantly anti-NATO. The CGT is steadfastly opposed to the NATO alliance – not simply to alliance policies, but to the very existence of the collective security system itself. In February, the CGT held a major anti-NATO protest in Seville at the EADS CASA manufacturing hub where the company expects most of the future Pentagon work to take place. The demonstration coincided at the NATO leaders’ summit, with the CGT denouncing the alliance as the “global armed wing of the capitalist powers and their multinationals.”[18]

Running from responsibilities

‘But you can't just turn your back on all your responsibilities and run away from them,’ Major Danby insisted. ‘It's such a negative move. It's escapist.’ Yossarian laughed with a buoyant scorn and shook his head. ‘I'm not running away from my responsibilities. I'm running to them.’

EADS has the technology and resources to be a valuable partner in the defense and security of the United States. But if EADS is to be trusted – if Americans are to be comfortable buying its products and services – then the company, its owners, and its workers will have to live up to their responsibilities as America’s partner and change some of their ways.

Also, just as Yossarian finally realizes his Catch-22 is a made up bureaucratic absurdity, the Pentagon and Congressional overseers need to finally realizes the folly of their self-created procurement catch, and that they, at a minimum, have the responsibility to take into account the actions, if not the politics, of foreign suppliers.

REFERENCES

1. Joseph Heller, Catch-22, (London: Vintage Random House, 1994), Chapter 5, p. 63.

2. Ibid, Chapter 24, p. 337.

3. “Special Report: Airbus’s Secret Past – Aircraft and Bribery,” The Economist, June 12, 2003.

4. “For the Record”, Defense News, April 16, 2007 p.3

5. R. James Woolsey, “Why We Spy on our Allies,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2000.

6. Ibid.

7. Heller, Chapter 24, p. 325.

8. Herve Asquin, “France Calls to Lift China Arms Embargo,” Defense News Online, March 15, 2007.

9. Ibid.

10. “Iran Allegedly Purchasing Nuclear-Weapons Parts.,” RFE/RL Iran Report, 2 August 2005, Volume 8, Number 30.

11. Heller, Chapter 24, p. 338.

12. Richard J. Newman, “The European Invasion,” Air Force, June 2006, Vol. 89 No. 6.

13. “US-Firmen: Die Plünderer sind da,” Metall, May 2005. Online at http://www.igmetall.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0A342C90-8AD8F407/internet/style.xsl/view_4764.htm.

14. Ray D., “Germany’s Largest Trade Union: Portraying Americans as Blood Suckers ‘A Good Caricature,’” in David Kaspar, Davids Medienkritik blog, http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/germanys_larges.html.

15. (10 February 2007)

16. (10 February 2007)

17. (10 February 2007)

18. (10 February 2007)

19. Heller, Chapter 42, p. 567.

Michael Reilly is the Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Security Policy. Dr. Michael Waller and Bryan Hill provided research for this article.


119 posted on 07/08/2008 9:42:39 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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To: Always Independent
You must have an ax to grind against northrop grumman.

Not until they allowed themselves to be a front man for our becoming dependent on a foreign entity with dangerous predispositions and a track record of actual anti-American conduct and enmity. See above.

Other than this recent misbehavior on their part, I harbor no animus against them. I was always in favor of the NG B-2 bomber production, and thought it insane to have chopped off production just as unit cost was beginning to come down...at a measely 22 planes out of the planned 100. It would have given us more of a real fleet and a replacement strategy for the B-52s.

120 posted on 07/08/2008 9:49:17 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
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