Lawmaker (McCain) tells Pentagon not to rush tanker modernization study

[The Straight Story]

Lawmaker tells Pentagon not to rush tanker modernization study

From CongressDailyPM
In yet another blow to the Boeing Co., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has told the Pentagon not to rush a study of the Air Force's controversial plan to modernize its aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers.

In a Nov. 23 letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, McCain cited e-mail communications between Air Force Lt. Gen. John Corley and Natalie Crawford, a RAND Corp. executive, in which Crawford complained that her company needed more than five months to complete the Pentagon's so-called analysis of alternatives, or AOA.

"This is not an AOA and should not be advertised as an AOA," Crawford wrote Corley in May. "One could do an AOA in five months on only the most trivial of topics. This is not a trivial topic."

McCain, the second ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said RAND should be given more time to study the tanker modernization issue, given that the study is "something that should take several months and that is going to commit billions of dollars over several years," according to Crawford's e-mail.


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