Free Republic

Democrats for Boeing The truth about the tanker deal. by Christian Lowe 03/24/2008, Volume 013, Issue 27 It was one of those insider deals that give the defense industry a bad name, conjuring up images of smoke-filled negotiations between the brass and corporate fat cats in plush leather chairs. By the time it was over, two fat cats were in jail, a top Pentagon official had been forced to resign, a corporate CEO had lost his job, and the reputation of an iconic company that had served American troops for decades had suffered irreparable damage. Then it turned out it...

A Good Deal of Credit to McCain for Stopping a Bad Deal Boeing and blame. By David Freddoso In 2001, the United States Air Force wanted to begin replacing 500 of its aging refueling planes. The plan began with a sweetheart deal, buried in the fine print of the 2002 defense-authorization bill. The Air Force was to lease 100 Boeing fuel tankers at a cost of $26 billion — $6 billion more than the cost of buying them outright, according to an estimate by the White House Office of Management and Budget. If that sounds like a bad deal, it’s...

Last-minute objections from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) are not expected to derail NASA's long-awaited selection of a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) prime contractor. In its report, " NASA: Long-Term Commitment to and Investment in Space Exploration Program Requires More Knowledge," the GAO says NASA's acquisition strategy for the CEV program needs to be overhauled and it urges the U.S. space agency to hold off on signing a long-term contract for the proposed space shuttle replacement until 2008, the year NASA officials expect to commit to a preliminary design for the CEV and have a better idea of what...

WASHINGTON - The Boeing Co. must compete again for Air Force work worth more than $3 billion to upgrade C-130 cargo planes because of a conflict of interest in the original deal, the Air Force said In a letter this week, Michael Dominguez, acting secretary of the Air Force, said a 2001 contract awarded to Boeing was tainted by Darleen Druyun, a former senior Air Force official who has admitted giving special treatment to the Chicago-based jet maker. Druyun, who later took a job at Boeing, is now serving nine months in prison for violating federal conflict-of-interest laws. The Air...

Update 3: Pentagon Probes More Air Force Contracts 02.14.2005, 06:37 PM The Pentagon is investigating eight more Air Force contracts handled by Darleen Druyun, the former Air Force official who was convicted last year of giving The Boeing Co. special treatment on a tanker lease deal. The contracts range in value from $42 million to $1.5 billion each, with a total value of about $3 billion, according to a summary provided by the Pentagon on Monday. Michael Wynne, the acting chief of Pentagon acquisition programs, said the eight contracts were identified as suspicious from among 407 reviewed by a team...

She favours Boeing on Air Force contracts for hiring daughter and daughter's boyfriend and, later, to protect daughter, who got a poor performance reviewWhile overseeing contracts, she meet Boeing secretly for $422,000 job there HE had long insisted that her work decisions were strictly professional. Then, she failed a lie-detector test. Finally, Darleen Druyun, the No 2 weapons buyer for the US Air Force, admitted that her weapons-buying decisions were influenced by a desire to curry Boeing's favour for herself and her family. The career of Druyun, once the most powerful woman in the Air Force, is over. Last...

Exerpted due to WSJ requirements. Also no link as this was from paper.... military's major weapons programs have come under scrutiny from prosecutors and military procurement specialists ... Darleen Druyun's courtroom admission Friday that she systematically steered various contracts to Boeing Co. Ms. Druyun was the Air Force's second-highest contracting officer for nearly a decade before she went to work as a Boeing vice president in December 2002. ... she negotiated her $250,000 Boeing job while overseeing the company's Air Force contracts, and on Friday was sentenced to nine months in prison for conspiracy to violate conflict-of-interest laws prohibiting such...