The Pentagon on Wednesday requested new bids on a $35 billion contract for aerial-refueling tankers, and Boeing supporters on Capitol Hill said the highly technical document apparently favored a European airplane. Even outside analysts said the Defense Department had tweaked the request for proposals to respond to the concerns of congressional auditors in a way that would bolster the larger European tanker over the medium-size Boeing tanker. With initial bids due in roughly seven weeks, Boeing won't have time to prepare an offer using one of its larger planes. "It's obviously stacked against Boeing," said Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research center that focuses on national-security and defense issues. "It appears to favor a larger aircraft in a way the original did not." The Air Force earlier had awarded the contract for 179 tankers to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the parent company of Airbus. After Boeing filed a protest, the Government Accountability Office concluded that there were "significant errors" in the contract award and recommended a new competition. ...
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