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McCain Still Considering Tanker Deal
By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press
March 4, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John McCain said Monday that he hasn't made up his mind on a $35 billion Air Force contract awarded to the parent company of French plane maker Airbus.

McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, helped scuttle a previous deal that gave the contract for the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers to Chicago-based Boeing Co.

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, won a new competition with Boeing Friday to build the refueling planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades.

''Having investigated the tanker lease scandal a few years ago, I have always insisted that the Air Force buy major weapons through fair and open competition,'' McCain said. ''I will be interested to learn how the Air Force came to its contract award decision here and whether it fairly applied its own rules in arriving at that decision.''

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, said Congress should examine the Air Force contract.

''The Air Force's decision to award the contract for a much-needed modernization of the nation's aerial tanker fleet to Northrop Grumman and Airbus raises serious questions that Congress must examine thoroughly,'' Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday.

The questions include ''national security implications of using an aircraft supplied by a foreign firm,'' as well as whether the Air Force gave sufficient consideration to the contract's effect on American jobs, Pelosi said.

McCain said jobs were not the key issue.

''I've never believed that defense programs, that the major reason for them should be to create jobs,'' he told reporters in Phoenix. ''I've always felt that the best thing to do is to create the best weapons system we can at minimum cost to taxpayers.''

McCain's two Democratic rivals have also criticized the Air Force decision, which came as a surprise to analysts and lawmakers and was widely seen as a major blow to Boeing. The company has supplied refueling tankers to the Air Force for nearly 50 years.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois expressed disappointment Sunday that his home-state company lost out on the tanker contract. Obama said it was hard for him to believe ''that having an American company that has been a traditional source of aeronautic excellence would not have done this job.''

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said she was ''deeply concerned about the Bush administration's decision to outsource the production of refueling tankers for the American military.''

While details of the decision are not fully clear, ''it is troubling that the Bush administration would award the second-largest Pentagon contract in our nation's history to a team that includes a European firm that our government is simultaneously suing at the (World Trade Organization) for receiving illegal subsidies,'' Clinton said.

Boeing had been heavily favored to win the tanker contract, and the Air Force decision helps EADS break into the world's largest military market and opens the door to possible follow-up contracts. The contract calls for the Air Force to buy 179 tanker aircraft over the next 15 years as it replaces its Boeing-built KC-135 tankers, which are, on average, 47 years old.

The contract award could still be challenged by Boeing or members of Congress.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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