Dangers ahead in Air Force procurement: Aircraft contracts could reward Russia, French espionage and bribery, and other bad behavior

US intelligence uncovered Airbus bribery around the world

The EADS idea of leveling the playing field is to bribe corrupt officials. Airbus-related was the subject of scandals in Belgium, Canada, India, Kuwait, Switzerland and Syria.

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey confirmed seven years ago that Airbus bribed foreign officials to buy their planes. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed addressing European complaints about our Echelon electronic intelligence program, Woolsey said that the U.S. was not spying on European companies to steal their trade secrets. “They don’t have much worth stealing. Instead we were looking for evidence of bribery.” He admitted that the Echelon program was aimed partly at Airbus: “That’s right, my continental friends, we have spied on you because you bribe.”¹⁴ Woolsey added:

• “Your companies’ products are often more costly, less technologically advanced or both, than your American competitors’. As a result you bribe a lot.”
• “When we have caught you at it, we haven’t said a word to the US companies in the competition. Instead we go to the government you’re bribing and tell its officials that we don’t take kindly to such corruption. They often respond by giving the most meritorious bid (sometimes American, sometimes not) all or part of the contract. This upsets you, and sometimes creates recriminations between your bribers and your bribees, and this occasionally becomes a public scandal. . . .”
• “In spite of a few recent reforms, your governments largely still dominate your economies, so you have much greater difficulty than we at innovating, encouraging labor mobility, reducing costs, attracting capital to fast-moving young businesses and adapting quickly to changing economic circumstances. You’d rather not go through the hassle of moving toward less dirigisme. It’s so much easier to keep paying bribes. .  .”
• “Get serious, Europeans. Stop blaming us and reform your own statist economic policies. Then your companies can become more efficient and innovative, and they won’t need to resort to bribery to compete.”
• “And then we won’t need to spy on you.”

How EADS levels the playing field:  Stealing, threatening, bribing, influence peddling

“Airbus uses a series of incentives and threats to steal customers away from Boeing – everything from bribes and landing rights to discounts, value guarantees and trade threats and rewards,” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a 2004 speech. With Boeing headquartered in her state, she is sensitive to the issue. But even someone with no parochial interests can see that the issue is about dirty dealing for American taxpayer dollars. “Bribes and corruption have long been part of Airbus’ standard operating procedure for getting other countries to buy their airplanes.”¹⁵ The Economist detailed EADS/Airbus bribery in an important 2003 article.¹⁶

In recent years, EADS/Airbus have been horning in on the United States, building assembly and service facilities in Alabama and securing the support of targeted congressional delegations.  “The company has been busy building domestic political support for a program that would ultimately involve billions of dollars and thousands of jobs,” Air Force magazine reported in June, 2006. “The company also has been recruiting talent with the technical know-how (and political connections) to get deals done in Washington.”¹⁷