Tanker-deal backers go on offensive for Boeing

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WASHINGTON — Boeing and its supporters on Capitol Hill have launched a public-relations offensive this week, hoping to regain momentum for a proposal to use the lagging 767 production line in Everett to build 100 air-refueling tankers.

Much of the effort is designed to neutralize concerns raised in Pentagon reviews and to attack rival Airbus, which wants the U.S. Air Force to reconsider its pending $23.5 billion tanker contract with Boeing.

This week, the Defense Science Board, which advises Defense Department acquisitions officials, is expected to release a report on whether the Air Force truly needs to replace its fleet of Boeing KC-135s, many of them 40 years old.

Sources say the report is likely to recommend the Air Force retire the KC-135s, but may not urge doing do so immediately, as Boeing and Air Force officials hope. It may also question whether the Air Force should explore converting surplus passenger jets mothballed in the Arizona desert.

Last week, about 100 Boeing managers from across the country canvassed Capitol Hill, talking to their representatives about the company's commitment to clean ethics.

Yesterday, Boeing took out full-page ads in newspapers in Washington, D.C., Seattle and Chicago, giving its side of the tanker debate.

Pentagon officials put the proposal to lease 20 tankers and purchase an additional 80 planes on hold in December pending the outcome of several investigations. Congressional committees would have the opportunity to scrutinize the final contract between Boeing and the Air Force.

In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor today, Sen. Patty Murray is expected to charge France-based Airbus and its parent company EADS (European Aeronautic Defence & Space) with orchestrating a misinformation effort against Boeing.

"The Airbus campaign of half-truths is on full display as the company works overtime in Washington, D.C.," reads an advance copy of her statement.

"We are about to surrender our global aerospace leadership because we are sitting on our hands while Europe is doing everything it can to dismantle our aerospace industry," the speech reads.

The European consortium wants the Air Force to let Airbus bid for U.S. tanker work, arguing it can supply tankers based on the Airbus A330 for less money.

Boeing supporters quietly wonder whether there are any connections among Airbus, some of the watchdog groups that have vigorously criticized the tanker deal as government pork, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the deal's toughest adversary on Capitol Hill.

Diane Murphy, vice president of EADS North America, once worked for a political-consulting firm that helped during McCain's 1982 campaign. She said she has spoken with him twice in the past 18 years, and never about tankers.

EADS North America has retained heavyweight lobbying firms, including Quinn Gillespie & Associates, the firm founded by Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. Murphy said the company has not lobbied Capitol Hill on the tanker issue.

In March, EADS North America chief executive Ralph Crosby wrote to Murray: "Your assertions that EADS 'has resorted to a campaign of distortion and half-truths in an effort to kill the proposed Air Force tanker lease program,' are simply not true."

McCain laughed when asked last week whether Airbus was fueling congressional skepticism about the tanker deal.

"I find that highly entertaining," he said.

He intimated that Boeing's problems were its own making, referring to last month's guilty plea by former Boeing executive Darleen Druyun, who admitted talking to Boeing about a job during the time she served as an Air Force negotiator on the tanker proposal.

"I'm sure it was Airbus that motivated Ms. Druyun to negotiate with Boeing for a job. I'm sure they were behind that. I think it's hilarious."

Although Airbus tankers would be assembled in France from mostly European components, the company says the tanker conversion would take place in the United States, creating an unspecified number of jobs.

Airbus also has taken out advertisements saying its new A380 super-jumbo jet supports 120,000 U.S. jobs through U.S. suppliers.

Murray said Airbus job claims are overblown.

While watchdog groups deny any contact with Airbus, they have met with McCain to orchestrate strategy.

It was during one such session last summer that Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative-leaning National Legal and Policy Center, said he decided to investigate real-estate transactions by Druyun.

He eventually discovered Druyun had sold her $692,000 house to a Boeing executive while she worked for the Air Force. Boehm passed the information to Pentagon investigators.

He said his group became concerned when the tanker deal for 100 leased aircraft was inserted into a 2001 spending bill without any hearings, competition or analysis that the Air Force needed a new tanker fleet.

"I don't think the question is Airbus or Boeing," he said.

"The Air Force has to replace it eventually, and Boeing is probably the one to do it, but what do we lose by not having them jump through the hoops everyone else has to?"

Alex Fryer: 206-464-8124 or afryer@seattletimes.com