Boeing Aircraft and Boring Airhead

Thanks to Bob for the link. I apologize for the length here, but you'll get to all your favorite characters, including the Insult in Chief if you stay with it.

Top officials in the Bush administration—including the president himself—are implicated in the expanding scandal surrounding airplane manufacturer and defense contractor Boeing. The case provides a revealing glimpse into the extent to which US military policy is subordinated to brazen profiteering by defense contractors and the government officials who enjoy their patronage.

The [Boeing-Air Force lease] contract was nearly finalized last month, despite studies by both the Pentagon and Congress concluding that the deal was unnecessary and overpriced.

Boeing lobbyists, Air Force officials with close ties to the company, and individuals on the influential Defense Policy Board, including Richard Perle, a key political ally of the Pentagon’s right-wing civilian leadership, all pushed the deal, which amounted essentially to a multibillion-dollar subsidy to Boeing. Their efforts also had the support of both the White House and prominent Democrats.

That's why "prominent" Demwits don't stand up to Bush - they're in big money pockets, just like the Repukes.

Since news of the scandal broke, Boeing has been forced to fire two of its executives and to demand the resignation of its chairman and CEO, Phil Condit.

To be replaced by crooks a little further down the corporate ladder.

The Pentagon, the Justice Department and Congress have all opened investigations into the matter, and the contract itself has been put on hold. The investigations will undoubtedly serve more to cover up than reveal the extent to which the financial interests of defense contractors and government officials have become thoroughly intertwined.

Ya THINK?

An Air Force officer helps Boeing to sell a deal that the Air Force neither needs nor can afford. Her suggestion is: "work placement could help". The translation: have subcontracts awarded in the districts of key Congress members.

And...

Air Force officials were pushing the deal despite the fact that the plan did not even meet requirements for tankers that the Air Force itself had specified. At one point, a document listing these requirements was modified at Boeing’s request in order to meet the capabilities of the 767. “The Air Force agreed to drop a demand that the new tankers match or exceed the capabilities of the old ones,” according to the Post.

Boeing also changed its proposal from selling 36 planes to leasing 100. The purpose of the lease structure was twofold. On the one hand, it helped Air Force officials pushing the deal because it would allow the government to delay accounting for the cost, since technically the payments would take place over a period of several years rather than all at once. Boeing, on the other hand, was able to charge a higher price for the leasing arrangement than it would have for selling the planes outright. Moreover, the company arranged to sell the planes to a non-profit trust, which would then lease the planes to the Air Force. This would allow Boeing to credit the total value of the contract toward immediate revenues. Similar structures had been created by Enron to massage accounting numbers and inflate profits.

...In a June 2002 e-mail, Bob Gower, Boeing’s vice president for tankers, wrote: “[The] meeting today on price was very good. Darleen spent most of the time bringing the [US Air Force] price up to our number... It was a good day!”


Was Darlene a Boeing sales exec? No. Darlene was Darlene Druyun, the Air Force acquisitions officer!

But she got employed by Boeing shortly thereafter. Ho. Ho. And fired just recently when the scandal broke. Ho. HO.

Darlene pulled a couple, three illegal stunts while she was getting Boeing the deal for the Air Force.

The corrupt dealings were hardly confined to Druyun alone, but reached to the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Air Force Secretary James Roche has been a strong supporter of the contract, pushing it even after the scandal erupted...Roche is close to Rumsfeld and has been nominated by Bush to fill the now-vacant position of secretary of the army. He is a former vice president of another military contractor, Northrop Grumman.

...A number of reports came out in 2002 that cast doubt on the deal. The Institute for Defense Analysis, an independent think tank, issued a report that Boeing was overcharging the Air Force by $21 million per plane.

More ominously for Boeing, in late 2002 the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—part of the executive branch—stated that the leasing plan was not needed and was overpriced.

Boeing, however, had more cards up its sleeve, including the White House chief of staff Andrew Card. According to the Washington Post, Card, “acting at what officials say was the direction of President Bush, told the Air Force and OMB to resolve their differences.”

...“Speaker Dennis Hastert and congressman Norm Dicks spoke directly with President Bush in support of moving ahead on the tanker lease. In both cases, President Bush reportedly expressed his support for moving ahead with the tanker initiative and asked chief of staff Andy Card to be ‘on point’ for this effort.”

They just don't care. You've seen this story a dozen times. Nobody cares if you know any more. Because you are not going to do anything about it.

...Evidence of top-level backing for the deal has continued to this day Another senior civilian official in the Pentagon, the top Air Force acquisition officer Marvin Sambur, sent e-mails to other officials as late as November 26—two days after Boeing’s firing of Druyun and Sears—urging that the contract be signed immediately to preempt the scandal’s derailing the deal.

Three days before he left the White House in 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an extraordinary final speech in which he drew attention to the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.” This “military-industrial complex,” he warned, carried with it “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”

With the installation of the Bush administration four decades later, the danger outlined by Eisenhower has not only fully ripened, it has become quite rotten. The “revolving door” between government and military contractors now leads directly into a White House that acts as a direct sponsor of profiteering, a practice evidenced by not only the Boeing scandal, but also the role of Vice President Richard Cheney, the former Halliburton CEO.

There's more. With a list of names. You may continue to read about it here.

Things keep going this way, and His Slowliness is going to have to capture Usama.

You looking for the "Impeach Bush" link?

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.