Pro-Boeing politicians speak out on tanker contract

Why bother holding a competition????

What people keep overlooking was that GAO did not give the award to Boeing, nor did it in any way suggest which aircraft was better. In a nutshell, all it said was that in making the award, USAFAF did not follow its own rules and specifications, did the life cycle costs wrong (which USAF has partially admitted) and did a flawed analysis. What GAO then said to USAF was that if the original solicitation met your needs, then go back and evaluate the offerings to that solicitation in accordance with the criteria you yourself set up. If you now think the original solicitation does not meet your needs, then issue a new one that does and evaluate those proposals, but follow the rules that you yourself set up.

They should get everybody in a room and say, "Listen up. We're going to split this order. It doesn't make sense to have all of our eggs in one basket, anyway. We will order x number of tankers from EADS, and x number of tankers from Boeing. In 2014, we will award an order for x more tankers, based on performance by the two contractors to that point, as well as the performance of the aircraft in the field. Further blocks of tankers may be ordered in 2018 and 2022."
That might cost marginally more in some aspects, but having an alternative would keep everybody's nose to the grindstone . . .