USA TODAY International Edition
Retired general had no conflict of interest, Panetta says
Boeing exec took part in war game
WASHINGTON — A retired Air Force general who became a Boeing executive did not have a conflict of interest when he took part in a war game involving an aerial tanker the company was vying to build for the military, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says.
Panetta made the statements in a letter sent Thursday to Sen. John Mccain, R- Ariz., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mccain had asked the Pentagon to investigate the matter after a November USA TODAY report that said the Air Force altered the 2008 war game to allow retired general Charles Robertson to participate.
Boeing ultimately won the $ 50 billion contract to build the tankers for the Air Force.
Panetta, in his letter, noted that although the war game, Global Mobility 2008, involved aerial refueling, it was not related to the Pentagon’s efforts to buy the new tanker. Moreover, Robertson did not take part in the military’s selection of Boeing to build the plane, Panetta wrote. Robertson provided “operational guidance and insight to war game participants.”
Robertson had been the top officer at U. S. Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command before retiring in 2001. He went to work for Boeing, retiring as a vice president in 2010. He did not respond to a request for comment.
A USA TODAY investigation in 2009 found that 80% of 158 mentors, retired officers hired as advisers, had ties to the defense industry, including Roberson. Panetta assured Mccain the Pentagon has taken “many steps” since then to “impose controls on senior mentors.” Among them: They must disclose business ties and have had their pay capped, and they are subject to confict of-interest rules. Those restrictions were not in place in 2008, when Robertson participated in the war game.
In 2010, a top Pentagon lawyer charged with reviewing the senior mentor program said transparency was needed because of the retired officers’ ability to affect Pentagon policy. “They will be in a unique position to inform and influence war planning at the highest level and may, ultimately, hold some sway, indirect or otherwise, regarding defense purchasing decisions,” wrote Leigh Bradley, director of the Pentagon’s Standards of Conduct Office.
The Air Force war game may not have involved a conflict of interest, but “appearances matter, too,” said Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group.
Robertson’s participation in the war game was disclosed in e- mails obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request that the Air Force had withheld for nearly two years. In one e- mail, a top Air Force general noted Robertson’s position as a mentor and Boeing’s involvement in the tanker contract and “suggested caution about how we play the [ tanker] in the war game.”
“It is regrettable that the Air Force took so long” to fulfill the newspaper’s request for public documents, Panetta’s letter said. “Unusual circumstances” led to the delay, including the need to sort through thousands of records.
The e- mails and other Air Force documents revealed concerns inside the service about the number of senior mentors used by the Air Force and how much money they were paid.