Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wynne: Blinded by Tanker Rage?

Just when we start to think former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne might have something important to say he comes up spouting gibberish.

Take his latest interview with Air Force Magazine's Daily Report. In it he once again shows how, at the highest levels of the service, there is an alternate tanker reality.

Wynne thinks the service should be meaner to losers of procurement competitions:
Excessively kind language, he said, leads the losers to think they only lost by a hair. In the KC-X tanker competition, “We should have been harsher on the loser,” Wynne said during an interview July 28. However, the service refrained from frank comments. Instead of writing a " 'We don’t want you memo' " to Boeing after it lost to Northrop Grumman, the service crafted a " 'We like you, but you didn’t win' memo," Wynne said. “I just don’t think the write-up was harsh enough.” Boeing was apparently emboldened by the perceived narrow miss to launch its protest, which has put the coveted tanker contract back up for grabs.
From where we stand Boeing was emboldened because they could tell Air Force procurement personnel did not follow the RFP, were duplicitous in their discussions during the competition, and some even sold their integrity to spin public opinion against a Boeing protest. Also, the GAO decision revealed the competition was close; so we wonder how harsh Wynne could have made his comments.

They say hindsight is 20/20, but in Wynne's case it seems to be blind to reality.

[Note: After 30 July the article link will be broken. You must visit the Daily Report archives and pull up the July 30th edition to retrieve it.]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

From where we stand Boeing was emboldened because they could tell Air Force procurement personnel did not follow the RFP, were duplicitous in their discussions during the competition, and some even sold their integrity to spin public opinion against a Boeing protest.

And the latter the most serious moral issue, IMHO, even though the first two issues are the big things legally.

Doesn't it bother even the N-G partisans that the number 2 guy in USAF tanker procurement committed suicide a year ago, or that the former chief of staff of the Air Force's exec who was dealing with this program committed suicide recently? Doesn't it bother you that the USAF procurement people couldn't even ADD correctly? Doesn't it bother you that they told atrocious lies, and had senior people at several levels telling these lies, in an attempt to win the PR battle, in hopes of THAT keeping the GAO from doing their job? Doesn't it bother you that they held up the debrief to the loser for two and a half weeks, so they could get this PR campaign rolling, in an attempt to dissuade the loser from making a perfectly justifiable protest?

And as for Wynne - why are we even listening to him now? He has already been discredited, fired, given the boot. Now he says he should have lied better, and that would have made this all go away?

To paraphrase Joseph Welch in the McCarthy hearings;

"Let us not assassinate this proposal further, Mr ex-SECAF....

You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Anonymous said...

Hello.... does it bother Boeing that Boeing was caught bribing, caught out sourcing, caught lying... Boeing to pay a $3 million fine for exceeding value limits on the purchases of parts from foreign suppliers for its military products. Boeing Unions having a fit when Boeing out sources wing and tail of 767 to Aeronovali in Italy and Japans JADC. Boeing wins A-10 wings made in America and out sources to Korea KAI.

Where is Boeing's sense of decency?????

Anonymous said...

And where is Northrops Decency? so What is it they are buiding for this TANKER ?? And as far as bribes and all that Northrop is also guilty. I am shure we can dig up alot on Northrop oh and speak of honesty EADS wow you do not even want to go there. I can see your eyes wide shut. pull your head out see this for what it really is. 3 leaders lobbied the President for there job protection, or for a bribe give me this contract or pull your missles outof our country is this the people you really want to DEAL WITH?god man give me a brake.