Pentagon puts hold on MacDill tankers

Turmoil at Boeing prompts the deputy defense secretary to halt a deal that sends 32 planes to Tampa.

TAMPA - Less than a month ago, Congress and the Pentagon sealed a deal that would help secure the future of MacDill Air Force Base by sending it nearly three dozen new refueling tankers.

Now that deal is on hold.

Responding to a scandal at Boeing Co., the Pentagon said Monday it will not sign the contracts for 100 new tankers, including those intended for MacDill, until it examines whether improper actions by company executives affected the agreement.

In a letter to lawmakers, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, with the blessing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said he was ordering "a pause in the execution of the contracts to lease and purchase tanker aircraft."

He cited the "recent allegations" over the tanker deal at Chicago-based Boeing, which have led to the dismissal of two executives and the resignation of chairman and chief executive officer Phil Condit.

Wolfowitz said the Pentagon's internal auditor will examine whether the conduct of the two executives had any negative impact on the contract to lease 20 tankers and buy another 80.

He put no time frame on the delay.

While no one expects the deal to collapse, it is unclear what will happen next. Congressional hearings are planned for January.

A Boeing spokesman said the company had been given no change in direction, suggesting it would proceed with its work on the tankers.

House Appropriations Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, said he expected a review to take no more than six weeks because of the exhaustive scrutiny the proposal already has undergone.

MacDill supporters have been counting on the aircraft to help secure MacDill's future during the next round of base closures in 2005. Young said the Air Force and MacDill eventually will get the new tankers because the fleet is aging, but he said delivery could be pushed back by a year or two.

MacDill had been scheduled to get 16 new tankers in 2010 and 16 in 2011. Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Wash., and Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota are scheduled to get new tankers as well.

"We're still going to have the tankers," Young said. "If we would have taken my advice and purchased them two years ago, we would have been better off today."

Al Austin, a Tampa developer who serves on a state panel charged with protecting Florida bases from closure, was not happy with the Pentagon announcement. He said what worries him is the timing of the delivery of the aircraft.

"I've always maintained the fact that additional aircraft are desperately needed out there, so the pause is not something you'd be terribly excited about," Austin said. "At the same time, I don't want to overreact and take a negative approach to this. Let's just see how this plays out."

Three months ago, the tanker deal appeared sealed. Under the original plan, estimated to cost $21-billion, the Air Force planned to lease 100 new tankers from Boeing.

But critics led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., characterized the arrangement as a sweetheart deal for Boeing.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., derailed the deal in September. The opposition was fueled in large part by Boeing documents that highlighted the cozy relationship between the company and the Air Force. In a compromise, the Air Force agreed to lease 20 new tankers and buy 80 at a cost of $17-billion.

At the same time, the Pentagon announced that the inspector general was investigating the relationship between Boeing and a former Air Force official involved with the tanker lease, Darleen Druyun.

Last week, Boeing announced it had fired its chief financial officer, Mike Sears, and Druyun, who went to work for the company after leaving the Air Force.

A Boeing investigation found that Sears approached Druyun about joining the company while Druyun was overseeing Boeing contracts.

Boeing said Sears and Druyun were fired for violating company policies on hiring and tried to cover up the misconduct.

Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center in Washington, which promotes ethics in government, said he does not expect Congress to scrap the deal. He expects it to be slowed down and to see Boeing sweat.

But he said he hopes the Pentagon conducts an analysis of alternatives to determine which tanker proposal makes most sense.

"It sort of puts every ethical problem you can have with a procurement all in one case study," Boehm said. "What's missing?

"You've got corporate espionage. You've got apparent bribery, conflicts of interest, relatives working for the contractor, revolving door. Name something that has happened in any procurement scandal in the last 50 years that is not in this story."

Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he never expected the Pentagon to put the deal on hold. He said that he expects the deal to go through but that no planes will be leased. He characterized the lease agreement as "radioactive politically."

"Will MacDill get tankers? Yes," Ashdown said. "I just don't know how."

-Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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