Defense chief backs tanker deal

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday he stands behind the Air Force's decision to award a $35 billion contract to a European airplane.

"I believe, based on the briefings that I've received, that it was a fair competition and a merit-based decision," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. He said the contract for the air-to-air refueling tankers was awarded under rules established in law.

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the plane by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Northrop Grumman Corp., was "clearly a better performer" than the one from Chicago-based Boeing Co.

The committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the panel's top Republican, John Warner of Virginia, said they would want more information on how the contract was won after the companies are briefed Friday.

But Warner, who oversaw the tanker deal as chairman of the committee before Levin, commended the Air Force's process and said he supports the decision.

Addressing criticism on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon is outsourcing military purchasing, Warner said lawmakers should back off.

"I feel very strongly that Congress should not get into the business of trying to rewrite a contract, particularly one of this magnitude and complexity," he said.

Nonetheless, the uproar continued. Boeing supporters and union officials criticized the decision, and Boeing said its interpretation of the bidding criteria was different from the Air Force's.

Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit, said Boeing offered its 767 aircraft because the company thought that plane offered the size and flexibility the Air Force wanted.

"We didn't think they wanted a bigger plane," Albaugh said at a conference of defense analysts in New York.

Albaugh said Boeing was surprised to lose the contract and believes its plane would better meet the Air Force's needs at a lower cost. He said the company will protest the decision only "in the event that we think there is an irregularity in the proposal phase."

Air Force officials have said the larger size of the KC-30 tanker offered by EADS and Northrop Grumman helped tip the balance in its favor because the tanker's larger size will enable it to carry more fuel, cargo or personnel.

Wynne, the Air Force secretary, told senators the planes were judged on nine key criteria and "across the spectrum, all evaluated, the Northrop Grumman airplane was clearly a better performer."