GovernmentExecutive.com

Several top Pentagon officials will testify Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on a just-completed inspector general investigation into the Air Force's tainted deal with Boeing Co. to lease a fleet of KC-767 aerial refueling tankers.

Committee members requested the investigation last year after corruption was exposed in connection to the now-defunct deal. The lineup for the hearing includes acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, acting Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Michael Wynne, acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz and Deputy Inspector General Thomas Gimble, a committee aide said.

Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper also might testify. Schmitz has not yet determined the official release date for the long-awaited report, but it is expected to coincide with the Tuesday hearing, sources said.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the inspector general's office had completed its investigation and copies of the report had been sent to Capitol Hill. The report makes several recommendations aimed at changing weapons-buying and leasing policies, as well as the service's management of major programs.

"Many of the issues raised in this report have already been identified and are being addressed," according to a Pentagon statement.

In the report, the inspector general criticizes more than a half-dozen top defense officials, including Jumper, Wynne, and his predecessor, Edward (Pete) Aldridge, a source said. Knight Ridder newspapers reported Thursday the officials were named in the report.

The completion of the report is the culmination of more than three years of government reviews and investigations into the $23.5 billion deal, considered the biggest procurement scandal in more than two decades. The lease deal ultimately led to the resignation of Air Force Secretary James Roche and the indictment of two top Boeing executives, Darleen Druyun and Michael Sears.

Druyun, a former acquisition official who left the Air Force for a lucrative job at Boeing, admitted to accepting Boeing's inflated prices for the tankers. Sears, former chief financial officer for Boeing, was sentenced in February to four months for violating conflict-of-interest laws. A Boeing spokesman had no comment on the report, saying he had not seen it.

The tanker investigation -- led in Congress by Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. -- has spurred a movement on Capitol Hill to overhaul the Pentagon acquisition process.

The House and Senate Armed Services committees' reports on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill call on the Pentagon to make dramatic changes to the way it procures weapons systems. The Senate devotes more than 20 pages to the issue and concludes that the Pentagon lacks a solid organizational structure. The committee recommended a thorough review of the department's weapons-buying capabilities and offices.

COMMENTS

• The only reason the Office of Inspector General did anything about this crime was because it was exposed. One doesn't have to read too much into it to realize that. Therefore, the only way that DLA waste and fraud will be investigated will be if someone in the media exposes it. The only way that the countless violations of federal law by the Department of Labor will be investigated is if the media exposes them. The only way that the misuse of federal resources in numerous federal agencies will be exposed is if someone from outside of the government exposes the crimes. If the only way to get serious crimes in our federal government investigated is to have the media expose them and shame our federal officials, isn't the real problem the Office of Inspector General? They aren't uninformed of the crimes, they just don't want to offend anybody in a high position. Is there any agency left in the federal government that actually cares about enforcing federal laws? Robert M. Posted June 9, 2005 8:50 PM
• This would seem to have little to do with military officers except a couple. The rest were civilians. How do you figure that hiring former military officers is a detriment to the procurement system? Both Druyun and Sears were civilians, along with Roche (the three top clowns involved). All three should have been sent to prison for a much longer time than they were. I suppose they got Druyun's mail address correct so she could receive her fat retirement check while in jail for those 4 months. Charlie Posted June 5, 2005 12:07 PM
• What this report will reveal is what so many USAF working-level acquisition professionals already knew, and have known for some time and, that is, that if there was systemic wrong-doing and abuse of power, it was being perpetrated at the highest levels. To wit, the actions of Druyun & Aldridge, and the inaction of Sambur, Martin, and others at SAF level. Aldridge ordered Sambur not to apply normal DoD review & oversight directives to this corrupt deal. Aldridge is now on the board of LockMart. Sambur will, or already has, gone back to industry. The point of my little diatribe is the USAF can mandate ethics training ad nauseum for all of us working-level peons but, 1) you can't teach ethics and 2) we aren't the problem. The problem lies in allowing political appointees and generals to jump from Govt service to industry & back again. Retired O-6s thru O-10s, now working for Boeing, LockMart, Pratt-Whitney, DynCorp, GE, etc, routinely buttonhole their former subordinates, now rising through the ranks to the O-6 thru O-10 level. And, as in the political arena, it's all about access in the DoD acquisition world. If it wasn't, Boeing, LockMart, Pratt-Whitney, DynCorp, GE, etc. wouldn't need to hire those retired officers, would they? Contracting Officer, USAF GovExec.com reader Posted June 3, 2005 3:56 PM