US won't make same mistakes on tanker-AF chief

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force has stepped up training, elevated oversight and reached out to outside experts to avoid making the same mistakes that doomed its last attempt to buy new aerial refueling tankers, the service's top military officer said on Thursday.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz said he expected Defense Secretary Robert Gates to make decisions soon on the acquisition process for the next tanker competition between Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N).

"The bottom line is we have taken lessons from that very searing experience and we intend to be very much more rigorous here once the secretary of defense decides one, what the acquisition strategy will be and two, who will execute that strategy," Schwartz said told a Heritage Foundation event.

He said the Air Force had elevated the level of supervision of the source selection process for the tanker acquisition program, was reaching out to a "broader array of talent" within the Air Force, and had added a panel of outside experts to point out possible shortfalls and add more "quality control."

The Pentagon last year decided to redo the tanker competition amid a political firestorm that erupted after government auditors upheld a Boeing protest against the Air Force award of a $35 billion contract to Northrop and Europe's EADS (EAD.PA) in February 2008.

Gates this week said he expected to make a decision within the next two weeks about the acquisition process, with an eye to releasing a draft request for proposals this summer, after getting input from lawmakers.

Schwartz said he respected the work done by Air Force acquisition officials on the contract, and noted that only eight of over 100 issues raised by Boeing were upheld by GAO.

Mark Werfel, a Virginia-based consultant who spent three decades working on federal acquisition issues, argues that the Air Force could have legally awarded the contract to Boeing after the GAO ruling last summer.