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

EADS is demanding phony fair playing field

After offering a tanker that the Air Force didn’t want, EADS pressured the Pentagon to change

its requirements to let its heavier, more expensive plane compete for the KC-X contract. Even member of Congress have been calling for a “more level playing field” to promote competition. But EADS backers say nothing of all the French subsidizing, bribery and spying so crucial to helping EADS develop the Airbus line in the first place and to compete unfairly against American firms on the global market.

Under Secretary of Commerce Grant D. Aldonas told Congress in 2001 that while the U.S. government does not intervene in civilian aircraft design and production, “European governments have a different orientation. Many governments in Europe view aircraft manufacturing in terms of its contribution to their national economic and engineering capability. These governments point to the aerospace industry as an engine of high technology growth and jobs,” he said.²²

“Airbus and other major aircraft manufacturers in Europe have a history of government ownership and control. Given this direct financial interest, European governments have undertaken steps to boost their industry’s competitiveness,” Aldonas said. Hence France’s interest in pushing the Airbus tanker on the U.S. Air Force.

“The Airbus consortium’s ‘parent’ governments have intervened in sales competitions in an effort to win orders for Airbus. Due to the fact that many foreign airlines are government-owned or substantially government-controlled, political rather than market forces can become decisive factors in purchasing decisions. In the past, some European governments have sought to influence these decisions by potentially offering increased airline landing rights for the purchasing airline, granting preferential trading rights in unrelated sectors to benefit the country purchasing aircraft, and demonstrating willingness to advance the status of countries interested in joining the European Union. The United States makes no such linkages,” according to Aldonas.²³

In January, after pressure from EADS partner Northrop Grumman and EADS-backed lawmakers in the U.S., the Air Force dropped its linkage of KC-X bidders with an official U.S. legal complaint against Airbus at the World Trade Organization, alleging unfair European government subsidies.²⁴

Jobs programs for Eurosocialists

So with EADS building a political foothold to become a major supplier to the Pentagon, the European consortium is really just pushing a huge jobs program for socialist labor unions and anti-American governments.

Anti-American union workers in Germany.

The German socialist IG Metall union represents workers for Airbus Deutschland. Face with losing thousands of jobs to Airbus reorganization, IT Metall is hoping for the Airbus A330/KC-X tanker contract. But the union, as a matter of policy (its flag is still the Soviet-era red banner), shows hatred of the United States.

The May 2005 cover of its magazine Metall contains a cartoon of a bloodsucking insect grinning and tipping its Uncle Sam hat. (German socialists throughout modern history have liked to compare their enemies to insects.) The magazine called American businesses “bloodsuckers” and “parasites.”²⁵ Union leaders and their Social Democrat Party friends defended the magazine after the liberal Free Democratic Party tried to get them to renounce the grotesque depiction of the United States. IG Metall Chairman Juergen Peters responded by calling the cartoon “a good caricature” of Americans.²⁶