McCain Presses Probe Into Deal for Tankers

Sen. John McCain demanded Monday that the Pentagon turn over the e-mails of more than two dozen officials relating to a $23.5-billion deal between the Air Force with Boeing Co. for aerial refueling tankers and hold its officials accountable for the biggest defense procurement scandal since the 1980s.

“The thing [that] is most disturbing to me is that no one has been held responsible at the Department of Defense,” the Arizona Republican said.

McCain, who has spearheaded investigation into the deal to lease or buy 100 Boeing 767s that would be converted into tankers, vowed to continue the probe, now in its third year.

The deal, which has since been voided, resulted in a wide-ranging investigation that has seen the former No. 2 civilian Department of the Air Force acquisition official, Darleen Druyun, sentenced to nine months in prison, a guilty plea by a former top executive at Boeing and the resignation of the aerospace company’s chief executive.

Air Force Secretary James Roche and other administration officials remain under investigation and McCain pledged to keep digging into the case, despite Roche’s recent resignation, which takes effect Jan. 20.

McCain said attempts by the Air Force to withhold potentially damaging Roche e-mails had “raised the level of mistrust that continues to exist between Congress and the office of the secretary of the Air Force.”

McCain said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s statements to date about the scandal were “eye-popping” and amounted to Rumsfeld essentially dodging the issue of accountability. Rumsfeld acknowledged there was “a lack of adult supervision” of Druyun, but blamed it on the high turnover of senior Department of the Air Force officials.

McCain last month released a series of e-mails in which Roche asked a lobbyist for Boeing to help “quash” the Pentagon’s acting acquisitions chief, Michael Wynne, for objecting to the Air Force deal with Boeing.

McCain and leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee told Rumsfeld last month it was imperative to punish those who allowed it to happen, or risk “disastrous effects on the integrity of the acquisition system.”