By Emelie Rutherford
Congress should move quickly to confirm a new Air Force secretary and chief of staff so questions about the protested tanker contract can be answered and the process ahead is not hampered, observers said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced yesterday he recommended President Bush nominate U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) head Gen. Norton Schwartz as the new Air Force chief of staff and Pentagon Director of Administration and Management Michael Donley as service secretary. The White House said yesterday Bush will nominate Donley and designate him acting secretary while he awaits Senate confirmation.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)–a critic of the Air Force’s contested aerial refueling tanker contract award to Northrop Grumman [NOC] and European firm EADS over Boeing [BA]–said last week’s resignations of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley “definitely plays into tanker concerns.”
“When two resignations of this high profile come about at the head of the Air Force, this could have a ripple effect all the way through,” said Tiahrt. He sits on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee (HAC-D) and has talked of potentially cutting off funding for the tanker–depending next week’s decision by the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) on a contract protest–in the fiscal year 2009 defense appropriations bill the subcommittee will mark up next month.
“It’s my hope that the Senate quickly gets the people on board, gets Donley confirmed,” Tiahrt said in an interview.
The congressman has been sending letters to Air Force officials questioning the tanker contract.
Tiahrt said he and other tanker-contract critics will have to reach out to people “lower down the chain” than Wynne and Moseley.
“Donley … if he is the new guy, he’s coming in cold,” he said. “So if we’re going to get the information, we have to go to one level below the chief of staff of the Air Force, one level below the secretary of the Air Force, because that’s where the knowledge base is now.”
Analyst Loren Thompson said he is convinced the tanker controversy had nothing to do with Wynne and Moseley’s forced resignations, which Gates pinned on a report critical of two Air Force nuclear weapon mishaps and its nuclear performance standards (Defense Daily, June 6).
Still, Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, said there are “at least two ways in which the change in leadership could impact on the entire tanker debate.”
“First of all, until the new leaders are confirmed, the Air Force will be hard pressed to explain any negative findings from GAO,” said Thompson, has close ties to the Air Force.
“But second, once they are confirmed, Gen. Schwartz will have superior knowledge of airlift and refueling operations. And that will give him a real advantage in explaining whatever GAO uncovers.”
Thompson said he assumed Schwartz’s confirmation would come quickly, “because he’s well known and highly regarded.”
“In the case of Mr. Donley, he’s not as well know,” Thompson said. “I’m not sure Congress will rush into that confirmation.” He noted Donley would likely only serve for a few months, until the change of presidential administration, while Schwartz could remain in the chief of staff role for years.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has not yet scheduled confirmation hearings on Schwartz and Donley, a spokeswoman said late yesterday.
It remains to be seen to what extent Wynne and Moseley’s resignations will sway perceptions of the Air Force’s ability to execute contracts like the one for the tankers.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), an outspoken critic of the tanker contract award, said last Thursday the “resignations raise new red flags about procurement and oversight within the Air Force.”
Thompson said if the GAO comes back with any findings of error, “it will simply feed into a perception that the Air Force has not been well managed.”
“I think the odds are that GAO will find some kind of problem, because it’s a very complicated procurement, and the Air Force found some minor difficulties itself when it went back to do its review,” he said.
“The picture that the world is getting of the Air Force these days is not very positive in terms of the management–between nuclear stewardship and intelligence for troops in Iraq and contracting improprieties and contract protests.”
Gates also recommended yesterday that Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Duncan McNabb take Schwartz’s place at TRANSCOM, and that Assistant to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. William Fraser replace McNabb.
The White House released nothing in writing on Schwartz as of Defense Daily‘s deadline.
Schwartz, as of late yesterday afternoon, was scheduled to talk tomorrow about TRANSCOM before the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.
The GAO is due to issue a decision on Boeing’s contract protest by day’s end June 19. A GAO spokesman said yesterday staff are busy writing their decision.