Fixed Defense Contracts Are Not that Unusual

What's unusual is someone getting caught...

• "I don't pick the winner, but if I did, I'd pick SMS," Goldfein reportedly said to the seven-person group selecting a contractor to jazz up the Air Force's Thunderbirds air show with massive Jumbotron video boards, according to a lengthy Department of Defense Inspector General's report. The head of the selection team almost immediately "caved," giving in to what he believed was a fixed process. Another member of the team called it "the dirtiest thing" he'd ever experienced.

Major weapon systems usually have too much visibility/transparency to get awarded to cheaters. But below ACAT-1 (Acquisition Category 1 - highest dollar contracts) the dirt is plentiful. It does not take a direct order from above to fix a contract selection process....and the senior Colonels and Generals who are looking to become fat-cat contractors after getting out all know this. Some succumb...many don't.

There is no shortage of honorable officers in the US military, the problem is that with the hundreds of billions that are at stake, it only takes a few to do real damage. The Boeing tanker deal is a good example. Boeing won initially, but it was discovered how the process was fixed (Google "Drunyun"). And a re-competition started.

Nobody objected to a foreign competitor in the tanker deal - until said foreign competition (Airbus) won. Then, the xenophobes came out of the woodwork. Airbus won one of the most scrutinized competitions ever in US contracting history, GAO upheld the bid, and the xenophobes whine on.

Look to the homefront for your graft and corruption, that is where the bulk of it lies.
- posted by john @ 5:04 PM