Northrop charges that tanker bidding skewed toward Boeing

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Northrop charges that tanker bidding skewed toward Boeing
By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspaper
Posted on Sunday, November 1, 200

WASHINGTON -- A European aerospace company and its American partner charge that the Air Force is stacking the odds against them and favoring the Boeing Co. as it prepares to seek bids on a $35 billion contract to start replacing the nation's fleet of aging aerial refueling tankers.

"This is tantamount to a cost shootout that accelerates the race to the bottom," said Mitchell Waldman, a Northrop Grumman vice president, arguing that the Air Force has decided that cost is the overwhelming factor and that it doesn't matter how good a plane is. In the last contract bid, he said, the Air Force indicated that it wanted certain new capabilities in the new tanker, but now it's just about price.

Waldman refused to say whether the Northrop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. team would pull out of the competition if changes weren't made.

Boeing backers on Capitol Hill say, however, that it's a replay of the previous competition, when Northrop-EADS, with the help of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pressured the Air Force to change the ground rules by threatening not to bid. Northrop-EADS won that competition, but the Government Accountability Office overturned the award.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., charged that it's all part of a Northrop-EADS public relations campaign.


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/washington/story/78107.html