Tonight:
5°c
US tanker deal row escalates
Bill Condie, Evening Standard20 Mar 2008
Defence giant Northrop Grumman, which with Europe's Eads won a controversial air-tanker contract from the US Air Force, has heightened the war of words with Boeing over the deal, accusing the aircraft maker of lying about it.
Northrop, Eads and several smaller contractors including Britain's Cobham won the $35 billion (£17.5 billion) contract after the USAF said they were offering a better platform.
But US politicians rallied round Boeing, citing national security concerns. Northrop says Boeing is making "a number of false assertions", and the Air Force preferred the size and capability of the A330-based tanker. It adds that the 767 variant offered by Boeing has yet to be built.
Boeing's allies claim the deal terms were changed to favour Northrop and Airbus, but Boeing wasn't told.
One Congressman has even proposed banning companies whose governments don't spend 2% of their gross domestic product on their militaries. Under that rule, the UK would just scrape in.
