Their missives, as a result, provide an unusual glimpse into part of what scholars described more than 20 years ago as the "Iron Triangle" -- the enduring alliance between the military services, the defense industry and their congressional advocates.
Roche and former Northrop executive Ralph Crosby were once rivals at the firm, said sources who know them both. When Crosby was appointed in August 2002 as the head of the U.S. office of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. -- the parent of Airbus, a fierce Boeing rival with its headquarters in France -- Roche sent an e-mail to William Bodie, his top public relations aide, saying: Well, well. we will have fun with Airbus.
Roche's hostility to Airbus was also reflected in an e-mail debate on April 16, 2003, between Wynne and Roche about inviting Crosby to lunch. Wynne opened the discussion by telling Roche and Sambur that he wanted Crosby to say how much a refueling tanker built by Airbus would cost.
Wynne explained: They came in a couple of weeks ago and offered to build the majority [of the tankers] here in America. . . . I am not sure where this will lead, but the benefits of competition may be revealing.
Roche replied: Mike, you must be out of your mind!!! Crosby has lots of baggage, as does Airbus. We won't be happy with your doing this.
Wynne replied with a reference to Pentagon rules against sole-source contracting: But where will the competition come from?
Roche replied by invoking U.S. anger over France's failure to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: Neither you nor I can attend the Paris Air Show, we are getting into a possible flap over inviting the chief of the FAF [French Air Force] to a gathering next September, and you are inviting them to lunch? Hello? Within minutes of the invite, Crosby most likely used your call to butter his personal croissant in Paris, and EADS would then inform the [French presidential office] . . . in seconds. Be careful!
Airbus was not the leasing program's only enemy, according to Roche's and Sambur's e-mails. Sometimes top Pentagon officials, such as Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, caused problems by deviating from the Air Force orthodoxy that replacing the tankers was urgent.
Reacting to an interview with Myers published on April 9, 2002, in which Myers said that the existing tanker fleet was adequate for future needs, Gen. John P. Jumper, Air Force chief of staff, told Roche: I don't think there was malice. . . . We just have to articulate the problem we are trying to fix.
In the summer of 2003, the Pentagon's office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) also stoked Air Force pique by dissenting from its claim that leasing would essentially cost the same as buying the planes. In fact, said PA&E director Ken Krieg in a memo on June 20, 2003, to Wynne and others, lease costs would exceed purchase costs by $1.9 billion to $6 billion, depending on the accounting method used. He said the deal violated Pentagon procurement rules.
