Buzzards on board the
AIRBUS
...with Homeland Security taking a back seat!
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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March 1, 2008
Airbus parent beats Boeing for
big U.S. Air Force contract
By Leslie Wayne, International Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Air Force, in a stunning decision against Boeing, awarded a $40 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers Friday to a partnership between Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus, putting a critical military contract partly into the hands of a foreign company.
The contract, one of the largest at the Pentagon, has the potential to grow to $100 billion. It is also a sign of the growing influence of foreign suppliers within the Pentagon and breaks a decades-long relationship with Boeing, which built the bulk of the existing tanker fleet and fought hard to land the new contract.
"This isn't an upset," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area research group. "It's an earthquake."
Under the contract, Northrop and the parent of Airbus, European Aeronautic Defense & Space, or EADS, would build a fleet of 179 planes, based on the existing Airbus 330, to provide in-air refueling to military aircraft, from fighter jets to cargo planes. It gives a huge lift to EADS, whose commercial aviation program has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years.
While final assembly of the craft would take place at an Airbus plant near Mobile, Alabama, parts would come from suppliers across the globe.
At a news conference, air force officials said the creation of domestic jobs was not a factor in the decision. In response to questions about possible negative reaction to the deal in Congress, General Arthur Lichte, head of the air force's air mobility command, said, "This will be an American tanker, flown by American airmen with an American flag on its tail and, every day, it will be saving American lives."
Reaction from some in Congress, however, was swift.
"We are outraged that this decision taps European Airbus and its foreign workers to provide a tanker to our American military," the delegation from Washington State said in a joint statement. Boeing planes are assembled outside Seattle. "This is a blow to the American aerospace industry, American workers and America's men and women in uniform."
For its part, Boeing, which had been considered the strong favorite to retain the contract, said it was "very disappointed" in the outcome. But it did not say whether it would file a formal protest - something General Michael Moseley, chief of staff of the air force, has said he hopes the losing bidder will not do because it would only further delay the tanker replacement program.
In its statement, Boeing said, "We believe that we offered the air force the best value and lowest risk tanker for its mission." The company added that only after a debriefing by the Pentagon would the company "make a decision concerning our possible options, keeping in mind at all times the impact to the warfighter and the nation."
A Boeing victory was considered so certain that many Wall Street analysts had already factored the contract into their economic forecasts for the company and led one senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, to prematurely send out a press release praising Boeing for its victory.
The air force decision is also a surprise ending to a protracted contracting process that went on for nearly a decade and became mired in scandal and international politics. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, had scuttled an earlier attempt by the air force to award the contract to Boeing, opening the door for the Northrop-Airbus bid.
McCain's campaign spokeswoman referred calls to his Senate office, which could not be reached for comment.
Norm Dicks, a Washington Democrat who is a member of the House Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee, said he was attending an anticipated victory party at Boeing's Washington headquarters when the mood suddenly darkened.
"Here we are in the middle of a recession and we give this to Airbus?" Dicks added. "That is not going to go down well."
Ronald Sugar, the chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said in a telephone interview that he expected members of Congress would have a "variety of views" depending on whether their districts would be gaining or losing jobs under the deal.
He said that 60 percent of the content of the new tanker would come from the United States and that the contract would create 2,000 jobs in Mobile and 25,000 overall in the United States.
"This is more about the capability that we will give to the kids fighting the wars and the cost to the taxpayer," he said.
Backing Sugar's view was Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who hailed the decision as "great news for Alabama."
The Alabama and Mississippi delegations had lobbied hard in Congress to polish the image of Airbus. In Paris, at the annual air shows, Airbus officials and these politicians proudly displayed the proposed European tanker offering and made the argument that if the United States wanted to sell its weapons to European countries, it should also open its doors to foreign suppliers....
Replacing these tankers has been the air force's top priority since 1996, when the government first proposed obtaining new planes. The first 179 tankers will be acquired at a pace of about 15 a year. But it is expected that, over time, nearly 400 new refueling planes will be needed, which could bring the program's total cost to $100 billion.
For more than a decade the air force's effort to modernize the fleet has been thwarted by global politics, Washington scandals and an aggressive attack by McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In the end, a procurement scandal led to the departure of Philip Condit, the chief executive of Boeing, the resignation of James Roche as air force secretary and the imprisonment of two Boeing executives, one of whom had worked on the program as a Pentagon acquisition official.
The air force, short on cash and wanting to acquire the planes as fast as possible, proposed an arrangement to Congress in late 2001 under which the Pentagon would lease the Boeing 767s in a sole-source contract that would keep Boeing's aging 767 production line alive.
But just as the air force was about to sign that deal, it came under sharp attack from McCain, a former navy pilot. He denounced the deal as a sweetheart arrangement between Boeing and the air force that had been arranged with insufficient scrutiny and oversight, and that would shortchange the taxpayer.
Soon afterward, it was reported that the air force's No. 2 weapons buyer, Darleen Druyun, had been promised jobs for herself, her daughter and son-in-law in return for steering the tanker contract and billions of dollars of other air force business to Boeing. Soon after joining the company in a $250,000-a-year post, Druyun and Michael Sears, Boeing's former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty and received prison terms.
The weight of the scandal caused the deal to collapse in 2004 and opened the door to competition.
Each side spent millions to sharpen its proposal, hire lobbyists and former generals to argue their case and wage extensive advertising efforts in Washington and at military gatherings.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/01/business/eads.php
March 6, 2008
Move to restrict EADS’
foreign ownership
The Financial Times, Limited
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt and Peggy Hollinger in Paris
France and Germany are finalising changes to EADS’ corporate by-laws to prevent foreign investors building significant stakes in – or even taking over – Europe’s flagship aerospace and defence company.
The move comes at a sensitive time for the Franco-German group, which late last week secured a breathtaking entry into the US defence market with a $35bn contract for its Airbus tanker-aircraft.
Some US politicians have said giving the contract to a foreign company could have dire security implications – a frenzy that could mount if EADS’ Russian or Middle Eastern shareholders were to increase their holdings.
Dubai International Capital, a sovereign wealth fund, bought 3.1 per cent last summer and VEB, a state-controlled Russian bank, took a 5 per cent stake in December.
But the French government, French media group Lagardère, and German carmaker Daimler, which together control 45 per cent of EADS, are planning to restrict any investor deemed predatory from owning more than 15 per cent.
That level – a working number that might change – is integral to two models the Franco-German core shareholders are working on to see whether EADS can be given additional protection against a foreign takeover.
This follows last summer’s agreement between Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to consider issuing “golden shares” to Paris and Berlin to take pressure off the core trio to uphold their stakes.
New takeover defences could herald adjustments to the shareholders’ pact, which enshrines German and French stakes at 22.5 per cent a piece. Lagardère has been seen as a probable seller of its 7.5 per cent stake....
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5fc7f6a2-ebbb-11dc-9493-0000779fd2ac.html
March 11, 2008
McCain advisers lobbied for
European plane maker
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.
Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.
EADS is the parent company of Airbus, which teamed up with U.S.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to win the lucrative aerial refueling contract on February 29. Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said in a statement Monday that the Chicago-based aerospace company "found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal."
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's years-long attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus.
EADS retained Ogilvy Government Relations and The Loeffler Group to lobby for the tanker deal last year, months after McCain sent two letters urging the Defense Department to make sure the bidding proposals guaranteed competition.
"They never lobbied him related to the issues, and the letters went out before they were contracted" by EADS, McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said Monday.
According to lobbying records filed with the Senate, Loeffler Group lobbyists on the project included Loeffler and Susan Nelson, who left the firm and is now the campaign's finance director. Ogilvy lobbyist John Green, who was assigned the EADS work, recently took a leave of absence to volunteer for McCain as the campaign's congressional liaison.
"The aesthetics are not good, especially since he is an advocate of reform and transparency," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group. "Boeing advocates are going to use this as ammunition."
McCain, a longtime critic of influence peddling and special interest politics, has come under increased scrutiny as a presidential candidate, particularly because he has surrounded himself with advisers who are veteran Washington lobbyists. He has defended his inner circle and has emphatically denied reports last month in The New York Times and The Washington Post that suggested he helped the client of a lobbyist friend nine years ago.
He has also cast himself as a neutral watchdog in the Air Force tanker contract, one of the largest in decades.
"All I asked for in this situation was a fair competition," he told reporters Monday at Lambert Field in St. Louis, home of a Boeing fighter jet plant.
On Friday, he defended his aggressive oversight: "I never weighed in for or against anybody that competed for the contract. All I asked for was a fair process. And the facts are that I never showed any bias in any way against anybody -- except for the taxpayer."
Last week, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the EADS-Northrop Gruman plane was "clearly a better performer" than the one proposed by Boeing.
It is unclear what EADS hired the lobbyists to do. Loeffler and Airbus officials did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages left late Monday.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment Monday on the links between McCain and lobbying efforts on behalf of EADS.
But Boeing supporters already have begun to accuse McCain of damaging Boeing's chances by inserting himself into the tanker deal.
One of them, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Washington, said the field was "tilted to Airbus" because the Pentagon did not weigh European subsidies for Airbus in its deliberations -- a decision he blamed on McCain. Everett, Wash., is where Boeing would perform much of the tanker work, and Dicks is a senior member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
In December 2006, just weeks before the Air Force was set to release its formal request for proposals, McCain wrote a letter to the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, warning that he was "troubled" by the Air Force's draft request for bids.
The United States had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that Airbus unfairly benefits from European subsidies. Airbus in turn argued that Boeing also receives government support, mostly as tax breaks.
Under the Air Force proposal, bidders would have been required to explain how financial penalties or other sanctions stemming from the subsidy dispute might affect their ability to execute the contract. The request was widely viewed as hurting the EADS-Northrop Grumman bid.
The proposed bid request "may risk eliminating competition before bids are submitted," McCain wrote in a December 1, 2006, letter to Gates. The Air Force changed the criteria four days later.
Dicks said the removal of the subsidy language was a "game-changer" that favored EADS over Boeing.
"The only reason that they could even bid a low price is because they received a subsidy," Dicks said last week. "And Senator McCain jumped into this and said that (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue -- which I think is a big mistake, especially when the U.S. trade representative is bringing a case in the (World Trade Organization) on this very issue."
EADS' interest in the tanker deal is evident in the political contributions of its employees. From 2004 to 2006, donations by its employees jumped from $42,500 to $141,931, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. So far this election cycle, company employees have donated $120,350. Of that, McCain's presidential campaign has received $14,000, the most of any other member of Congress this election cycle.
McCain prides himself in the role he played blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and of an Armed Services subcommittee, McCain led an investigation that eventually helped kill that contract in 2004. A former Air Force official and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.
"I intervened in a process that was clearly corrupt," McCain said Friday. "That's why people went to jail."
While McCain has praised Boeing for fixing its practices, his campaign said the experience prompted him to demand "a full, fair and open competition." His letters -- one to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England in September 2006 and the other to Gates -- were sent with that spirit in mind, Hazelbaker said Monday.
Once the rules were in place, Hazelbaker said, bidders submitted proposals, the Air Force reviewed them and the contract was awarded.
"That is a process that McCain, appropriately, had absolutely no role in," she said.
www.kycbs.net/McCain-Airbus-Lobby.mht
June 19, 2007
US Airways to buy 92 jets from Airbus
Christia Gibbons, The Arizona Republic
US Airways Group announced plans Monday to buy 92 Airbus aircraft to update its fleet and prepare for additional overseas flights. The deal provided a boost to Airbus, which outpaced its rival Boeing in terms of orders on the first day of the International Paris Air Show.
Neither Airbus nor Tempe-based US Airways would reveal the price of the agreement, although list prices of the craft would put the total order at $10 billion to $11 billion. It is likely, however, that US Airways paid less than that amount because the order was so large.
US Airways President Scott Kirby said the decision to pick Airbus over Boeing largely came down to delivery goals that fit better with the company's phase-out, phase-in schedule.
The airline will phase in new aircraft as it retires the B767 fleet. The updated planes will replace, not expand, the fleet, which accommodates about 360 planes.
US Airways said that 60 single-aisle Airbus A320 family aircraft are set to be delivered from 2010 to 2013.
An additional 10 A330-200 aircraft will enter the fleet starting in 2009. The remaining 22 Airbus A350 aircraft will be delivered in 2013.
Airline analyst Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group Inc. in Everett, Wash., called the order a good strategy.
"This allows them to make a hell of a deal on the A350s because they can afford to wait until they need them," he said.
Major international carriers should have the Boeing 787s when they come online next year. By the time US Airways is ready for the A350s, Boyd said, the planes could be among the most technologically advanced in the air.
And, although all fleets do not need the same aircraft, "it's important to standardize within a fleet," he said, adding that inconsistencies happened as a result of the merger of America West and US Airways in 2005.
Boeing's Dreamliner 787, rival to the A350s, is set to be in the air by May 2008...
US Airways officials considered this craft over the A350s, but were swayed by delivery goals. The A350 has three versions.
One accommodates 250 to 270 passengers, a second 300 to 330 passengers and the third more than 350 passengers. The airline hopes to win a route to China and fly the A350s to that country by 2014.
Airbus and Chicago-based Boeing tout the fuel efficiency of their new jets along with greater passenger comfort and convenience.
Airbus emphasizes better overhead storage bins, while Boeing promises higher cabin humidity, both boasting better seat configuration and comfort.
Airbus was ahead on orders the first day of the world's largest air show with $45 billion vs. Boeing's $4.4 billion.
However, the U.S. aircraft company had 584 orders for its Dreamliner coming into the week-long show.
Currently, US Airways has 205 Airbus aircraft, 148 Boeing Co. airplanes and one Embracer
May 25, 2006
BAE turning toward U.S. as it
cuts 27-year tie to Airbus
Sale to EADS of 20% stake could shake up both companies
By Nicola Clark
PARIS: When BAE Systems, the British military contractor, announced last month that it was bowing out of its nearly 30-year relationship with Airbus, the split was greeted in Britain with shock, followed by nods of recognition of the kind that sometimes come when a long-married couple confide that they have grown apart.
The British, after all, had been lukewarm about the European commercial aircraft venture almost from the beginning. The country entered talks in the mid-1960s on joining the French-German consortium, but backed out in 1969 when the supersonic Concorde - which received more than £1 billion, now worth more than $1.9 billion, in British state aid - garnered only a handful of orders. A full decade passed before BAE Systems, then a state-owned company, joined Airbus, in 1979.
Its departure now could change not only BAE but also Airbus, where the ownership - and decision-making - structures are evolving.
BAE has never really seen itself as a builder of passenger planes. When Airbus was transformed into a corporation in 2000, BAE made clear that its interest in the company was financial and not strategic: The terms included an option for BAE to sell its 20 percent stake back to European Aeronautic Defense & Space, which owns the other 80 percent.
"The fact that BAE is selling its stake should not come as a surprise," Gustav Humbert, chief executive of Airbus, said last week. "This is a business decision, not an industrial one."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/25/business/bae.php?page=1
January 5, 2006
Norway pulls investments in seven multinationals over ethical concerns
Groups producing nuclear arms components
OSLO (AFP)
Norway has withdrawn investments of more than 500 million dollars (413.6 million euros) from seven multinational corporations, including Boeing and Honeywell of the US, due to ethical concerns over the groups' production of nuclear arms components, the government said on Thursday.
The five other companies are BAE Systems of Britain, Safran of France, Finmeccanica of Italy, and US groups Northrop Grumman and United Technologies.
The withdrawal follows a recommendation from Norway's Advisory Council on Ethics, which is tasked with monitoring the ethics of companies in which Norway places its massive state Pension Fund, formerly known as the Oil Fund.
Norway's finance minister asked the central bank, which manages the fund, to sell the holdings, worth 3.3 billion kroner (416.2 million euros, 502 million dollars). They were sold last year, Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen told reporters on Thursday. "This does not mean that there won't be other companies (excluded)... Our work will continue," she stressed.
Norway, however, did not withdraw its stake in French oil group Total, in line with the Advisory Council's recommendation. Total has been criticised by several humanitarian aid groups for its controversial business dealings in Myanmar, formerly Burma, which is run by a military junta....
The Advisory Council said it saw "no direct link today between the human rights violations committed by the Myanmar regime and Total's activities in this country." The Norwegian Burma Committee said it was "very disappointed" by the decision. According to the most recent statistics available, the Norwegian state holds 0.679 percent of Total.
Norway's state Pension Fund, into which the state deposits its massive oil and gas revenues, is one of the richest funds in the world. At the end of September 2005, it was worth 1,281.1 billion kroner (161.4 billion euros, 195.2 billion dollars). The sheer size of the fund enables Norway to exert pressure on companies to ensure that their operations are ethical. Norway is the world's third-largest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The Scandinavian country has already withdrawn its stakes in 10 other companies, including Thales of France, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, and US groups General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. They are accused of helping manufacture cluster bombs, devices which are particularly lethal for civilian populations. ----
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2006nn/0601nn/060105nn.txt
March 29, 2005
Pentagon Strips Air Force of
21 Major Weapons Programs
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a highly unusual move, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer on Monday took away the Air Force’s authority to oversee 21 major programs with a combine value of $200 billion.
The move, called temporary, was made because of a civilian leadership vacuum at the Air Force after the departure last week of Peter Teets, who was under secretary of the Air Force as well as acting secretary. Teets had been fillin in since James Roche resigned as secretary in January.
It also comes amid continuing controversy over the Air Force’s handling of a multibillion-dollar Boeing aircraft lease deal that fell through last year and led to the conviction of former Air Force executive Darleen Druyun on charges of conspiring to violate conflict-of-interest rules.
Druyun admitted in court that she favored Boeing on deals worth billion of dollars because the company gave jobs to her daughter and son-in-law. Her admission led to a detailed Pentagon review of her nearly 10-year tenure as a key weapons buyer for the Air Force and prompted rival defense companies to file protests over Boeing contracts awarded during that period.
The episode has taken a tool on the Air Force. Since Roche departed, the White House has not nominated anyone to replace him as the Air Force secretary, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Some believe the current Navy secretary, Gordon England, will get the nomination.
In addition, no one has been nominated to replace Teets as the under secretary. What’s more, the post of Air Force acquisition chief has been vacant since Marvin Sambur left in January.
With Teets gone, the most senior civilian in the Air Force is Michael I. Dominquez, who has served since August 2001 as assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs....
In Monday’s announcement, the Pentagon said it was giving the decision-making authority for the 21 major Air Force weapons programs to Michael Wynne, the No. 2 Pentagon civilian in charge of weapons procurement.
The No. 1 slot has not had a Senate-confirmed holder since May 2003. Wynne was nominate for the top spot but his nomination – and others in the Air Force – have been blocked by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, as part of a long-running dispute over the Boeing lease deal....
The 21 programs include a $59.2 billion Boeing contract for C-17A Globemaster II advanced cargo aircraft, and a $31.7 billion Boeing and Lockheed Martin contract for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle....
Among other programs affected are air-to-air missiles, B-2 bomber radar modernization, C-5 cargo plane improvements, propulsion replacement for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and a $18 billion communications satellite program....
November, December, 1995
JOSHUA GOTBAUM
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
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Which Defense Firms Will Survive – Meet the
Man Who Helps the Pentagon Decide
A large white banner is first thing you notice upon entering the reception area of Joshua Gotbaum’s third-floor Pentagon office. In foot-high red letters, it reads: “Please Mr. Gotbaum, Save Natick [Mass.] Labs” (referring to the Base Realignment and Closure [BRAC] recommendation to close Natick).
Secretary Gotbaum, a former Wall Street investment banker, achieved the status of Washington insider in 1 short year. He is respected both by the Pentagon brass and defense industry officials. He influences key decisions ranging from BRAC to which defense industries will survive.
Secretary Gotbaum is the right man for the job at the right time. A 44-year-old lawyer, Secretary Gotbaum is at home in the world of mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings. He heads the new 260-person Pentagon Office of Economic Security and has won the confidence of many defense industry and military officials for helping educate the Pentagon brass on their decisions which impact the nation’s troubled defense industry. And so far, both sides appear pleased with his efforts or their behalf....
www.dau.mil/pubs/pm/pmpdf95/gotbaum.pdf
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For more recent poop on Joshua Gotbaum, GO TO > > > The Eagle Hooded: The 9-11 Coverup; Hawaiian Airlines: Flying with the Bankruptcy Buzzards;
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Last update March 16, 2008, by The Catbird.