Gates assured McCain on tanker competition: letter

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured Senator John McCain last year that the tender process for a billion-dollar aircraft tanker contract had been changed in line with his concerns, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

A team that included European aerospace giant EADS won the 35-billion-dollar contract to supply refuelling aircraft on February 29, setting off a storm of protests among supporters of US rival Boeing in the US Congress.

Some Democrats blamed the loss of the contract on McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, because he fought an earlier air force deal to lease tanker planes from Boeing.

That deal collapsed amid an influence peddling scandal that ousted the company's CEO and sent two executives to prison.

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