Jobs weren’t the basis for tanker selection
Editorial

Remember when Washington’s U.S. Sen. Henry Jackson was called “the senator from
Boeing”?

Now the state’s senior senator, Democrat Patty Murray, is doing her best to show she
deserves to inherit the role from the legendary Scoop.

Since Friday, when the Boeing Co. lost its bid for a lucrative Air Force tanker contract to
a U.S.-European team, Murray has been on the attack, issuing outraged broadsides on the
Senate floor and launching a public petition campaign on her Senate Web site.

The senator’s fighting stance on behalf of Boeing and her home state, which stood to reap
substantial economic benefits from the $35 billion contract, is appreciated by many of her
constituents.

No politician in Murray’s position would be expected to accept such a decision with quiet
resignation. But the senator’s performance so far has been, shall we say, a bit over the
top.

Murray has lambasted the Pentagon’s choice of a partnership of America’s Northrop
Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. – the parent company of
Boeing archrival Airbus. It is, she contends, an unforgivable and reckless outsourcing of
U.S. military capabilities and jobs at the expense of American taxpayers.

Whoa. Let’s keep some perspective here. The Air Force’s job was to choose the bidder
whose plane would best meet its needs in replacing an aging aerial refueling fleet that
should have been replaced long ago. The Air Force was not instructed to choose on the
basis of where the jobs would go.

If Congress wanted the Air Force to do anything differently, it should have said so before
the tanker competition ever got under way. And if Congress believed that allowing a
European company to help build the the new tanker fleet would jeopardize U.S. security,
it should have spoken up a long time ago.

As far as the Air Force was concerned, its top mandate was to run a clean competition
that would stand up to scrutiny – and dispel the memory of the sordid procurement
scandal that followed Boeing’s underhanded effort to lease 100 coverted 767 tankers to
the Air Force. That mess, it should be remembered, cost Boeing CEO Phil Condit his job
and the company $615 million in penalties.

The most plausible criticism so far of the tanker decision is Boeing’s complaint that it
didn’t know the Air Force would consider a new tanker larger than the 767. The larger
size and capability of the Northrop-EADS tanker was a key factor in the Air Force
decision. Washington’s U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks contends the Air Force pulled a “bait-andswitch”
on Boeing, which could have offered its larger-bodied 777 in the competition.

That claim bears examination. But Congress shouldn’t go meddling in a major military
contracting decision unless there’s convincing proof the decision was rigged or flawed.
So far, the jury’s still out.

Originally published: March 6th, 2008 01:26 AM (PST)