Pentagon IG tanker report points finger at senior officials

The Pentagon inspector general's investigation into the Air Force's deal to lease aerial refueling tankers from Boeing contains scores of redactions that shield from blame Defense Department personnel who worked on the now-defunct contract, several sources familiar with the report said Monday.

The report, to be released Tuesday, implicates more than a half-dozen senior Pentagon officials in wrongdoing surrounding the deal, but strikes the names of many other, more mid-level acquisition personnel. The administration also scrubbed other text to safeguard proprietary and competition-sensitive information.

"There are lots and lots of redactions," said a source who read the closely held report.

Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he could understand why the Pentagon would withhold the identities of mid-level employees, who might not have been aware of the full situation. However, he also is wary of what he sees as a trend within the Bush administration to be "overly secretive."

"Somebody from Sharpie [Permanent Markers] is profiting handsomely from [the administration's] policy on redaction," said Ashdown, who has monitored the tanker deal and other defense issues.

But despite the many redactions, the report is "absolutely devastating" to the Air Force, the source said. It "weaves a very cohesive cloth" that "brings together into one place all the various studies and findings."

The release of the IG report culminates more than three years of government reviews and investigations into the $23.5 billion deal, considered the biggest Pentagon procurement scandal in more than two decades.

Already, the lease deal has forced the resignation of Air Force Secretary James Roche and the indictment and conviction of two top Boeing executives, Darleen Druyun and Michael Sears.

A former acquisition official who left the Air Force for the high-paying corporate job, Druyun is serving nine months in jail after she admitted accepting Boeing's inflated prices for the tankers. Meanwhile, Sears, Boeing's former chief financial officer, was sentenced in February to four months for violating federal conflict-of-interest laws.

The 250-plus-page IG report names a handful of other officials, including Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper, acting Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Wynne and his predecessor, Edward (Pete) Aldridge. The source said the report pins most of the blame for the scandal on two officials, but declined to name them.

However, the source said the language in the report is so strong it will "provide a lot of leverage for people who want to make changes in the acquisition process."

Investigations into the tanker bill -- championed by Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. -- already have helped galvanize lawmakers to overhaul how the Pentagon buys its weapons.

Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees devoted pages to that issue in their reports on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, passed in both chambers last month. While both bodies approach change differently, both zero in on major weapons systems.

The report's release coincides with what is expected to be a heated Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, which will include testimony from acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Wynne and Jumper, among other senior Pentagon leaders.