Defense Secretary Robert Gates, clearly worried that the atmosphere is so poisoned by the battle between Boeing and Northrop and tainted by the poor performance of the Air Force, has decided to punt and leave any tanker RFP to the next administration.
Rather than hand the next Administration an incomplete and possibly contested process, Secretary Gates decided that the best course of action is to provide the next Administration with full flexibility regarding the requirements, evaluation criteria and the appropriate allocation of defense budget to this mission, the Pentagon release said this morning..
The release quoted Gates, saying that It is my judgment that in the time remaining to us, we can no longer complete a competition that would be viewed as fair and objective in this highly charged environment. The resulting cooling off period will allow the next Administration to review objectively the military requirements and craft a new acquisition strategy for the KC-X.
The first congressional reaction was positive, from one of the Capitols most important money men. I believe that Secretary Gates made the right decision in providing the next Administration with the opportunity to review the requirements and proceed with a new solicitation. Our committee advised the Defense Department to ensure that there was enough time for legitimate competition. This decision will allow for that, Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) said in a statement. He signalled pretty clearly that the House Appropriations defense subcommittee would come up with whatever money might be needed to keep the tankers flying. Now our job will be to work with the Department to make certain that our current tankers, that are over 40 years old, will be rehabilitated to ensure we have tankers available for world-wide Air Force missions, he added.
Read the rest of this story and more updates from DoD Buzz.
– Colin
Secretary Gates was for the tanker before he was against it.
Someone at the very highest levels should be fired for allowing this whole debacle to get to this point.
Someone won this round. And it was not Northrop Grumman.
Same old military procurement process, designed to be as expensive as humanly possible.
So what’s the criteria now? We just keep bidding until Boeing wins?
I hope whoever takes over the next administration fires every AF employee connected with this. Then bans Boeing from bidding on govt work for a decade.
>Someone at the very highest levels should be
>fired for allowing this whole debacle to get to
>this point.
IIRC, the USAF CoS and Civilian Secretary were canned for a lot of reasons, some stated, most not.
This seems to have been one of the unstated ones.
Man,if they can’t get a needed Tanker going what
lies are they covering up in Iraq/Afghan???? And the tan fill color is back,from a site I order music from???
The problem here is with DOD procurement:
1. USAF procurement officer extorts retirement job from Boeing as a condition of doing business with them.
2. USAF procurement people do ‘bait and switch’ by using source selection criteria that were in direct conflict with RFP.
3. DOD procurement tries to bluff their way past the reality that their changed RFP restarts the whole program.
Finally, even Gates saw the writing on the wall. As a former USAF procurement offical I can tell you that DOD PROCUREMENT HAS NEVER PAID ANY ATTENTION TO PROCUREMENT LAW, buying off wronged contractors with future fat contracts so they didn’t protest.
But when the USAF procurement official who was extorting a job from Boeing got caught and both she and Boeing were punished, the rules changed. If the federal government is going to send people to jail for using the good old boy system, the contractors aren’t going to use it, they are going to use their legal departments.
If DOD want procurement actions to go smoothly it’s actually quite easy. They can follow procurement law. Only problem is they have very little experience in working that way.
You don’t even have to read between the lines: just read to the end of the lines. The key point in today’s announcement concerning the inability to proceed is the point that the contract is trying to go forward “in this highly charged environment”.
So dear fellows, we must ask ourselves what made it a ‘highly charged’ environment? You can look at anything that transpired on the government side after the issuance of the final RFP and you won’t find anything to ‘highly charge’ the situation. You can go down the litany of missteps the aquisition folks are alleged to have stumbled through and you won’t find anything that caused things to be ‘highly charged’. Similarly the mere filing of a protest by Boeing wouldn’t have neccessarily ‘highly charge’ anything.
No, I submit the only thing that pulled the trigger that ‘highly charged’ the situation was the manner in which Boeing pursued its protest, and how Boeing brought the full weight of their political machine to bear from day one. (The speed at which Boeing moved in this direction still suggests premeditation to me: perhaps a plan B alternative for them as early as when they first anticipated or understood the essence of the final RFP.)
As to whether this is merely more political cowardice on the part of the DoD or not, I will await the next RFP before passing judgement. If there are certain changes made from the previous one without significant technical or user need rationale to support them, we will KNOW that Boeing will have cowed the DoD and successfully subjugated the entire acquisition system just to ensure the taxpayers will keep subsidizing their business case.
The possibility of good coming from this is extremely remote.
SMSgt Mac,
As usuall you are FOS. Deliberately misrepresenting the facts & blaiming Boeing for everything that went wrong.
What “caused” the ‘highly charged’ environment was Congress in its infinate wisdome (not) thinking it could fix the problems that occured during the tanker lease program by FORCING the USAF to conduct a “full & thorough competition” under INTENSE Congressional & DOD oversight when the USAF had already rejected the the A330 platform for not meeting its needs, being too risky, too expensive & TOO BIG. Everything which transpired was a direct result of that boneheaded act & Boeing not bending over backwards to take the blaim & be penalized more than it already had for the mistakes of the USAF & the DOD.
The USAF then had the uneviable job of conducting a soliciation (under INTENSE Congressional & DOD oversight) in which both Boeing & EADS (partnered with NG) would compete. The NG/EADS team took full advantage of the DEMAND for a competition & knowing that it could not win under the criteria the USAF established got the criteria changed to accomodate their otherwise noncompetative KC-30, then threatened to pull its bid unless “further elaboration” was made.
It wasn’t bad enough that the KC-X source selection team (NOT the USAF) did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation in selecting the KC-30, conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing, et cetera but “leaked” that it was not even close. Then it delayed a week before debriefing Boeing on “why” the KC-30 had been selected & in that breifing it became clear. Boeing protested the selection of the KC-30 sighting prejudicial errors made by the KC-X source selection team. In one of, if not THE harshest rulings anyone can remember the GAO sustained the protest. The result being such a loss of confidence in the USAF that its selection authority was taken away & given directly to the ONE man who was responsible for ensuring that what did happen did not happen…
What about all the changes made to & from the previous RFPs without significant technical or user need rationale to support them?
SMSgt Mac,
Thanks once again for proving my point correct.
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