WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was scheduled to meet Wednesday with officials in charge of Pentagon and Air Force purchases to discuss the controversial 35-billion-dollar refueling tanker deal.
On June 18 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, backed a protest by aerospace giant Boeing over a huge aerial refueling tanker contract awarded to rival Northrop Grumman, and recommended the US Air Force review the deal.
The decision could wrest the contract from Northrop Grumman and its European partner EADS in a battle fraught with protectionist overtones.
The recommendations of the powerful congressional investigative arm, although non-binding, are usually heeded.
The new refueling planes are to replace the Air Force's fleet of aging tankers made by Boeing, which had been the sole supplier of air refueling planes to the US military.
"It will be the first time he (Gates) has had a chance to hear from them about the GAO's recommendations, as well as the preliminary analysis that's been done within the department on how those recommendations would potentially impact the Air Force's February decision to award the new tanker contract to Northrop Grumman and EADS," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.
While the Air Force has 60 days to respond to the GAO, Gates "wants to move as quickly as possible" on the issue, Morrell said.
"This is something the secretary is going to be involved in."
EADS, the parent company of Airbus which had teamed up with Northrop Grumman to win the contract, saw the deal as a key plank in efforts to break into the US military market.
On Capitol Hill, Senator Maria Cantwell, who represents the northwestern state of Washington where Boeing has its assembly plants, said that the full GAO report -- released Wednesday -- "adds more fuel to the fire.
"It reaffirms that Northrop/EADS offered an inferior product," Cantwell said. "The Air Force should re-open and re-bid the contract."
And three legislators from Kansas, including Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, called on Gates to re-open the bidding process for the refueling tanker contract and "reexamine the results of the competition in light of the GAO findings and direct the award of the contract to Boeing."
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