Free Market Miracle Of The Moment

For the past three years, the Air Force has described its $30 billion proposal to convert passenger planes into military refueling tankers and lease them from Boeing Co. as an efficient way to obtain aircraft the military urgently needs.

But a very different account of the deal is shown in an August 2002 internal e-mail exchange among four senior Pentagon officials.

"We all know that this is a bailout for Boeing," Ronald G. Garant, an official of the Pentagon comptroller's office, said in a message to two others in his office and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Wayne A. Schroeder. "Why don't we just bite the bullet," he asked, and handle the acquisition like the procurement of a 1970s-era aircraft -- by squeezing the manufacturer to provide a better tanker at a decent cost?

"We didn't need those aircraft either, but we didn't screw the taxpayer in the process," Garant added, referring to widespread sentiment at the Pentagon that the proposed lease of Boeing 767s would cost too much for a plane with serious shortcomings.

Garant's candid advice, which top Air Force officials did not follow, is disclosed for the first time in a new 256-page report by the Pentagon's inspector general. It provides an extraordinary glimpse of how the Air Force worked hand-in-glove with one of its chief contractors -- the financially ailing Boeing -- to help it try to obtain the most costly government lease ever.

Furthermore, leading senators at the hearing made clear they would like officials in the White House and in the defense secretary's office to explain their roles in the defunct $23 billion proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 tankers to the Air Force.

But in the meantime, neither the White House nor the Air Force or the Department of Defense will allow members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to review many unabridged tanker documents that show the names of administration players, members of Congress or Boeing executives in an unflattering light. [...]

Another crucial revelation was that former Undersecretary of Defense Edward "Pete" Aldridge had refused to cooperate with the inspector general's investigation. Aldridge was in charge of defense acquisitions; he approved the tanker deal in May 2003, on his way out the door of the Pentagon.

The report debunked earlier claims by the Air Force that new tankers were urgently needed because the older fleet had major corrosion problems. [...]

A Boeing spokesman said the company had no comment on the report.

Aldridge could not be reached for comment, but last week he told Reuters the inspector general was just trying to "dig up dirt".

What you can do: State-Corporate collusion? State secrecy? Bilking of taxpayers? Sounds like a recipe for War Tax Resistance!

Posted by Eddie Tews at June 8, 2005 12:31 PM