Originally Posted by
FlightDetent
C.C, wonderful insights. I assume when an auditing body axes a public procurement due to selection not following the rules within itself, it's not a bad thing. Whether or not the auditing agency was tasked to dig up all they could, might give it a different taste, but does not alter the course.
It is all bit relative since no large government investment project worldwide is ever flawless or deep-water current free. Still, I enjoyed reading the way you present the arguments.
Thank you. The auditing agency got involved because when you protest, you have to choose one of two paths: the courts or the GAO, you can't do both. Boeing chose the GAO route. In those days, very few big procurements were protested, but the flaws in this process were so egregious that Boeing decided to go forward, knowing they'd risk the wrath of the customer.
I blame not Boeing, or Airbus or the GAO for how this went down. I blame USAF. Looking back at that time, you'll see that they were bungling procurement after procurement. There were glaring errors made, awards that didn't make sense, and outright corruption. In fact, after the first debacle on KC-X, DoD took the KC-X procurement away from USAF and considered running the whole thing themselves, a tremendous vote of no confidence