Under a Jan 29, 2005 headline of
Lockheed Team Ousts Sikorsky
for $6.1B Marine One Contract
here are some quotes from the selection announcement by,
Navy Assistant Secretary for Research and Development John Young,
“We picked based on the best value for the mission,” Young explained in a Pentagon briefing. The Lockheed aircraft, he stated, “provides essential improvement in the range, speed, communications capability and survivability necessary to efficiently and securely transport the president.”
“There are no political influences on this. No one at the White House contacted me.”
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D), for example, called the Navy’s selection of the Lockheed team “a great day for Owego, the Southern Tier and all of New York [that] will provide the president of the United States with a state-of-the-art-helicopter [and] an Oval Office in the sky.”
and finally this
The Navy’s decision drew praise from Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW). “Today, taxpayers avoided what could have been another helicopter sinkhole had Sikorsky won the contract,” asserted Tom Schatz, president of the CAGW, a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on eliminating government waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.
The “who’s-more-American?” contest, he said, clouded the bigger issue.
“Sikorsky draped its contract bid with American flags, insinuating that Lockheed presented a less ‘American’ choice,” Schatz averred. Picking the Lockheed team, he dded, “showed common sense by choosing a contractor that is expected to stay on budget and on schedule. With a record $427-billion budget deficit predicted for fiscal 2005, taxpayers deserve to have costs stay on the ground.”
siteselection.com/ssinsider/ … 050214.htm
and where is Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), not a word!!!
cagw.org/site/PageServer?pag … wsreleases
