They gave the questionable contracts over to Lockheed. But Lockheed doesn't have clean hands. They have been diciplined over 30 times for abuses such as overcharges, faked tests, and transfer of sensitive satellite technology to China.
Boeing's suspension leaves Lockheed as the primary manufacturer for space-based weaponry. Something this administration must have orchestrated through the Secretary of the Air Force,
James Roche (former Northrup-Grumman executive: Northrup is a sub. of Lockheed) and undersecretary
Peter Teets (Peter Teets presently serves as the director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets, is the former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin who retired from the company in late 1999.) To date, it is believed that the NRO has provided slightly more than $500 million each to Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
http://portal.lobbyliberal.it/article/articleprint/271http://www.webnetarts.com/socialjustice/laertes.htmlLockheed reports 80% of its business is with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. federal government agencies. It is also the largest provider of information technology (IT) services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. government.
So, Boeing was fined some $38 million last week but the joke is that the government has already awarded Boeing over 38
billion in contracts since 2002, and they are still on the public dole. Where's the penalty?
more about the rivalry between Boeing and Lockheed within the administration: (forgot where I got it)
"The level of combat worries some observers, because Boeing and Lockheed also cooperate on some of the nation's most sensitive programs, from managing the space shuttle to ballistic missile defense. The board investigating the space shuttle Columbia disaster, for example, is looking into whether the relationship between the two contractors was a problem in management of United Space Alliance, their joint venture that runs the shuttle program for NASA.
"They're now taking everything personally and remembering every time they lost to the other, and the cooperation going on between them is not what it used to be," a former senior executive at one of the companies said. "Every time they're cooperating on a contract, it's something each one felt they should have had the lead on. That's true on both sides."
Both companies have grown so big through industry consolidation that they are ravenous to win contracts. Lockheed Martin needs to find $500 million worth of work every week just to keep from shrinking. Boeing needs a staggering $1 billion per week, and it can no longer rely on its struggling commercial aircraft business to supply most of that figure.
To make up the difference, Boeing has expanded intensively into military and space contracting, which puts Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's top supplier, directly in its path. The result is tension, conflict and, some would say, paranoia.
Lockheed is the insider, the dominant government contractor whose tendrils reach throughout the bureaucracy, from the Postal Service to Homeland Defense. Boeing plays the brash newcomer, buying its way into Lockheed's markets by absorbing competing companies. It carries the mystique of big commerce from its global passenger jet business.
Lockheed has scored the biggest single win over its rival, beating Boeing in 2001 for the Pentagon's richest contract, the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter program. But Boeing has logged upset after upset in other contests, competing so aggressively that critics say the company sometimes overextends itself.
The rivalry plays out daily in ways large and small. Lockheed wins the Joint Strike Fighter race, so Boeing promotes unmanned combat drones as a replacement for fighter planes. Boeing takes the lead in a rocket launch competition, so Lockheed leaks word that the Boeing rocket is flawed.
Lockheed takes out advertisements honoring military personnel, so Boeing sponsors a coffee-table picture book called "A Day in the Life of the U.S. Armed Forces."
"You get to a certain point on this stuff where it can become pernicious," said one former Pentagon official. "You get to a point where you're just killing each other."
As is often the case with rivals, Boeing and Lockheed clash partly because they're so much alike. They're both old-school aerospace companies, American industry's last major havens for guys in oil-stained jumpsuits who make things whoosh and zoom.
"Boeing and Lockheed Martin are most of what's left from the old Cold War defense and aerospace sector. They're almost all the launch capability, most of the satellite capability, most of the aircraft capability and a big chunk of the missile capability," said Loren Thompson, an industry analyst who does consulting work for Lockheed. "To a large degree America's future in the aerospace sector depends on how they fare."
While they have other rivals in particular segments of the industry -- Lockheed vies with Raytheon Co. in air-traffic control, for instance -- no two contractors are in as many similar lines of work as Lockheed and Boeing.
But style and culture set them apart. Led by chief executive Vance D. Coffman, a former spy satellite engineer who can't talk about most of his super-secret career, Lockheed comes across as all pocket protectors and slide rules.
"Lockheed Martin's view is that Boeing is great at public relations but not at substance, and Lockheed sees itself as the other way around. And that's how they want it," a former Lockheed executive said.
Still, Lockheed officials worry increasingly that government decision makers simply don't like them as much as Boeing.
In 1999, for example, then-Air Force weapons buyer
Darleen A. Druyun criticized Lockheed Martin's management style during a private meeting. Details leaked around Washington, and the scolding reportedly contributed to a Lockheed management shakeup. Earlier this year, Druyun retired from the Pentagon and went to work for Boeing.
Druyun goes to Boeing:
Pentagon's Self-Proclaimed "Godmother of the C-17" Takes a Top Position with Aircraft's Manufacturer 1/6/03 Pro
http://www.pogo.org/p/contracts/ca-030103-c17.htmlThe Godmother of Boeing Makes a Soft Landing
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/StClair_Boeing.htm(Druyun introduces Airborne Laser:)
Airborne Laser Given Approval To Begin Next Phase
http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/News/1998/98-34.html&&DI=293&IG=c4033d66-be51-4d2f-b96c-aa418ed7649e&POS=3&CM=WU&CE=3(During her Pentagon tenure)
Pentagon Acquisition Chief Prohibits Discussions with the Media
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2001/10/druyun.html'Strategic coup' for Boeing at Pentagon
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/26013_boeing05.shtmlHere's another link to your story:
E-mails raise questions on Boeing lease - Sep. 1, 2003
http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/01/news/companies/bc.arms.boeing.tankerhttp://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=3381145
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