The US Air Force's top acquisitions official urged the quick signing of a US$20 billion contract with Boeing Co even after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed concern about improprieties, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Citing internal e-mail messages, the Times report said that Marvin Sambur, the acquisitions official, several months earlier had also forwarded to top Boeing executives copies of internal Pentagon communications outlining the negotiating strategy for the contract to lease and then buy 100 modified refueling planes.
Those messages were sent in April and May, the Times said, before Boeing and the Pentagon had reached an agreement on the controversial tanker-leasing deal.
The messages were provided by government officials and confirmed as authentic by Sambur to the newspaper in a telephone interview on Friday and provide fresh evidence of how the Air Force and Boeing worked as partners to promote the deal..
Critics have portrayed the deal as costly, unnecessary and unseemly. Two top Boeing officials were fired after what the company called "compelling evidence" came to light of misconduct on the officials' parts regarding the relationship between the aircraft giant and the Pentagon.
Boeing's chief executive, Philip Condit, resigned on Monday over the controversy.
According to the Times, Sambur sent e-mail messages on Nov. 25 and 26 to top Pentagon officials saying he favored immediate signing of the contracts with Boeing despite ethical and legal concerns raised by the firings.
One message with a subject line that said "HOT HOT" said "We are ready to sign today," adding that "delaying until January will cause harm to the Air Force and Boeing."
A second e-mail on Nov. 26 called for signing the contracts "ASAP" Despite Sambur's entreaties, however, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz put the project on hold on Monday pending a review by the Pentagon's inspector general."
Rumsfeld, on Nov. 25, had directed the Pentagon's senior staff to review the Boeing tanker deal.
President George W. Bush had signed into law on Monday a US$401.3 billion defense spending bill that paved the way for the Air Force to lease 20 tankers initially and purchase 80 more in the future.
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