Outside View: EADS tanker woes -- Part 2

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- Compared to Boeing's KC-767, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.'s KC-30 air tanker is easier to attack in combat, would occupy more space at military airports, requires extensive facility renovations, provides less flexibility in major military operations, and burns far more fuel.

And according to an independent study, the EADS KC-30 tanker would cost taxpayers some $30 billion in extra fuel costs and at least another $12 billion in new infrastructure upgrades to accommodate its oversize frame.

For the most part, military experts and news organizations have searched for an explanation as to why the U.S. Air Force would uncharacteristically tilt the playing field in favor of a foreign contractor with an arguably more expensive, less capable aircraft that is paid for by illegal subsidies.

Most commentators point to the hefty lobbying campaign of EADS and its congressional allies in Alabama -- the one state where EADS will throw a couple thousand jobs for "final assembly."

Indeed, news reports have widely cited the influence of the EADS lobbying campaign, pointing to several midcourse changes in the contract award process that unarguably favored EADS.

For example, the U.S. Air Force suddenly discounted the disadvantages of the KC-30's oversized frame, its higher costs and its lack of a proven track record. EADS was also exempted from critical export control laws that will allow it to use its cozy relationships with Iran and Venezuela; it may be able to even export technologies to these rogues developed with U.S. taxpayer financing.

But economic experts now say that by buckling in to EADS' backroom dealings, the U.S. Air Force inadvertently could have set back the primacy of the U.S. aerospace industry by decades.

Ironically, it seems as if the U.S. Air Force, perhaps inadvertently, is advancing the very goal of the illegal EU subsidy program that the U.S. Trade Representative and the bipartisan congressional leadership have been fighting.

It's not just that we are exporting 44,000 manufacturing jobs to Europe, whose shores were protected for generations by planes built by American manufacturers. We are outsourcing the most advanced aerospace industry in the world to a European Union that has declared war on our industrial base with illegal subsidies and thumb-nosing protectionism in their own government contracts.

If it were a book, it would be titled, "While the Pentagon Slept."

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(Antonio Gil Morales is national commander of the American GI Forum of the United States. The American GI Forum is a congressionally chartered veterans organization representing the interests of more than 1.3 million veterans of Hispanic descent who have defended the United States in almost every major war of the 20th century and continue to risk their lives in the struggle against terrorism.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)