Lawmakers cry foul over Defense procurement debacle

Sometimes, you just can't make anyone happy.

Such is the Defense Department's plight in the latest high-stakes contest to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. The competition for the deal, worth $35 billion or more, hasn't even officially begun, but lawmakers siding with the rival manufacturers bidding for the job are already calling foul.

A draft Request For Proposals released last month is, according to lawmakers on both sides of the fight, tilted squarely and unfairly in favor of the other guys.

"I believe it's a sham. And this is not the way to procure anything out of the Pentagon," Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, ringleader of the Alabama delegation, declared at a news conference on Tuesday.

To underscore his point, Shelby, whose state would host the Northrop Grumman-EADS aircraft manufacturing operation, called the draft RFP a "sham" two more times.

Not to be upstaged, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., complained -- several times -- that the competition has become political. "We're seeing politics poison a process that should be immune from politics," he said.

Two hours later, Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., circulated a letter he sent last week to the Pentagon outlining what he says are inherent flaws that favor Northrop Grumman over Boeing Co., which would build the tanker in his state.

"Unless these flaws in this draft RFP are corrected from the start, I firmly believe the department risks the same disastrous outcome that doomed the previous source selection," Dicks warned. "With the serious delays that have already impacted this critical tanker replacement program, I do not believe this is a risk the department or the nation should take at this time."

By citing "serious delays," Dicks was, of course, referring to GAO's decision last year to uphold Boeing's protest of the Air Force's tanker contract award to the Northrop Grumman-EADS team -- a move that ultimately thrust the lucrative deal back into play.

But what Dicks did not mention was a headline-grabbing scandal six years ago that led to cancellation of an overpriced Boeing contract to lease tankers to the Air Force.

It also sent a civilian Air Force official to jail for seeking jobs at Boeing for herself and her family while overseeing contract negotiations for the lease.

But with both sides now griping about a process they have both deemed unfair, maybe the Air Force finally has found the sweet spot.