E-Mails Detail Air Force Push for Boeing Deal

In the copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post, 45 sections were deleted by the White House counsel's office to obscure what several sources described as references to White House involvement in the lease negotiations and its interaction with Boeing. The Pentagon separately blacked out 64 names and many e-mails. It also omitted the names of members of Congress, including some who pressured the Pentagon to back the deal.

The report is nonetheless the most damning of the three reviews of the tanker deal completed by the inspector general since early 2004. It includes, for example, a statement from an unnamed cost analyst that "numbers were contorted a lot of different ways to sell the program."

It also suggests that the foundation of the Air Force's tanker lease -- that KC-135 planes were experiencing unexpected corrosion and needed urgent replacement -- was a house of cards. The report said the Air Force could not substantiate congressional testimony by two of the officials -- Roche and Maj. Gen. Paul W. Essex, a former head of its global reach program office -- on that subject.

"In fact, the studies that were available did not indicate an urgent or immediate requirement for the replacement of . . . KC-135 tankers," the report said. That view was confirmed last year by the Defense Science Board, which said the KC-135 airframes were usable until 2040.

The report says that Marvin R. Sambur, then the top Air Force acquisition official, knew that this urgency "did not exist" but claimed otherwise and ordered data unflattering to the deal removed from a key document. His office made what a critic of the lease elsewhere in the Pentagon interpreted as a "thinly veiled threat" to manipulate other Air Force contracts if the dissent did not cease, the report shows.

Sambur and Roche, who have resigned from the Air Force, did not respond to phone messages requesting comment. Previously, they have said their actions were appropriate and endorsed by others, including White House officials.

Druyun improperly used her influence to increase the price paid for the tankers and also made incorrect statements to others in the administration, the report states. When Air Force cost analysts told her that leasing would cost $2 billion more than buying the planes, she told the head of the Air Force Materiel Command that "she no longer needed the financial management team . . . on the project."

The Air Force has long maintained that any defects in the lease proposal were attributable solely to Druyun, who is serving a nine-month sentence in federal prison for illegally negotiating a lucrative job with Boeing as she supervised the lease negotiations. An employee at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld said the law firm no longer represents Druyun.

The inspector general's report makes it clear that the Air Force's aggressive pursuit of the lease over a three-year period was actually a team effort, and that shortly after Druyun agreed to the concept in a September 2001 meeting attended by Essex and top Boeing officials, other top officials fell into lock step with her. Roche backed the idea in a letter to Capitol Hill dated Oct. 9, 2001, without conducting a legally required analysis of alternatives, and blocked such an analysis in August 2003, according to the report.

Boeing's interests were at the center of the deal, the report suggests. Less than a month after Druyun's meeting with Boeing, the Air Force began developing requirements for the new tanker "tailored to Boeing . . . tanker aircraft capabilities," the report states. The result fell short of what other services, such as the Navy, wanted, and it excluded the passenger, cargo and medical evacuation roles for the plane that some military officials desired.

Boeing prepared briefing materials that Druyun presented to lawmakers while seeking congressional approval of the deal and worked with Druyun to refine the wording of legislation that specifically named the company as the beneficiary of the deal. Roche and Sambur later cited that language as the prime reason for favoring Boeing.

Druyun "was accountable for manipulating the congressional language," the report states.

Her tactics sowed previously undisclosed resentment among Air Force cost analysts and others, according to the report. At a June 2002 negotiating session in California with Boeing officials present -- a meeting that later came to be known inside the Air Force as "The Long Beach Massacre" -- Druyun "pretty much by herself pushed the Air Force team to the high end" of the price range, one of those present told investigators.

Cooperation between Boeing and the Air Force was nonetheless not always perfect, according to the e-mails recounted in the report. Roche complained in November 2002 to Sears, Boeing's top financial officer, and Phil Condit, Boeing's board chairman, that they were not lobbying hard enough on Capitol Hill.

Roche wrote, "Gee Mike, when I knew you and Phil, I had the sense you wanted to make money. Guess I was wrong." Boeing executives later pressed subcontractors to call the White House, and met with Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, who backed the deal.