McCain: Tanker report unfortunate for taxpayers

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - A report by congressional investigators questioning a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract is a setback for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, an instrumental figure in the Pentagon's long attempt to complete a deal on the aircraft.

The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday recommended the Air Force rebid the contract after finding "a number of significant errors" in the process. Northrop Grumman Corp., and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., beat Boeing for the contract earlier this year.

McCain had helped block a scandal-marred tanker contract with Boeing in 2004 and pressed the Pentagon in 2006 to change proposed bidding procedures opposed by Northrop Grumman and Airbus.

At a news conference in Missouri, McCain said, "I'm still proud that the first time around I saved the taxpayers $6.2 billion."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080618/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_tanker_fight;_

[rpannier]

1. What he meant

I'm proud that I screwed an American company and American workers.

I'm sorry that I may have to return the kickbacks I've received from Airbus because of this.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Pretty much... though I think I remember reading that about the same amount

Of US labor would be used in producing each?

Just like the "US Automakers" bleh.

[Hulk]

3. Nice going old man. And how many American jobs did that cost us?

[Doctor_J]

4. When is a pic of the Pentagon going to appear in Webster's next to the word

boondoggle?

As Sherman Potter said, a "monument to Murphy's Law"/

[liberal N proud]

5. Does he mean those tax payers who work for Boeing and their subs?

The ones who wouldn't have jobs to pay those taxes if the jobs went overseas?

[starroute]

6. The deal may be even dirtier than that

I hope Wayne Madsen isn't considered too conspiratorial to post here. I do tend to take him with a grain of salt -- but in this case I'm more inclined to trust what he says, because it ties in with some of the other dirt coming out of Alabama. At any rate, for whatever it's worth, here's his take on this deal:

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0803MLN/08031013WMR.asp

The recent major Air Force award of the KC-45A tanker contract to European Aeronautic defence and Space Co., the parent firm of Europe's Airbus Industries, and Northrop Grumman involves political payoffs and dubious lobbying by top Republican officials, including GOP presumptive presidential nominee John McCain, according to knowledgeable sources who spoke to WMR on the condition of strict anonymity. . . .

The background to the awarding of the contract to EADS lies at the very heart of the GOP corruption in Alabama that saw the political prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. The award of the Air Force contract to EADS-Northrop was the result of high-level collusion between Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, the White House, and John McCain. It also helped that two senior Bush administration officials, Deputy Secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz and former Vice President Dick Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby once served as highly-paid advisers for Northrop Grumman. . . .

WMR has also been told that the EADS-Northrop contract, said to be potentially worth as much as $100 billion and, eventually, possibly double that amount, also came with percentages of the deal going to Rove as well as McCain's presidential campaign coffers.

The greasing for the EADS contract also involved Riley, who began cementing the EADS deal while he served until 2002 and his election as governor as a member of the House Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces Subcommittee, the committee with oversight for the Air Force tanker contract. After Riley left the House to take up the governorship of Alabama, the nurturing of the EADS deal fell to Everett, who was also a member of the House Armed Services Committee. From the Senate side, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman McCain, knowing how much money from EADS-Northrop could end up in his 2008 campaign coffers, turned the screws on Boeing.

[NYC]

7. More on EADS and insider trading.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3358261

...France has two related probes, one by the Paris prosecutor, the other by the AMF, the Financial Markets Authority. The judges' probe into alleged insider trading at EADS was opened in late 2006...