Air Force Procurement
In case you missed it, my colleague Dana Hedgpeth wrote a story Friday about bumps in the way of a $1.2 billion Air Force contract awarded to Boeing to maintain the service's fleet of refueling tankers.
Boeing competitor Pemco Aeroplex, of Birmingham, Ala., protested the deal in September, alleging the Air Force's evaluation was flawed in "various aspects, including the evaluation of offerors' past performance, mission capability and cost/price," the Government Accountability Office said in a statement that Hedgpeth quoted in her article.
The GAO upheld the protest.
Pemco later alleged that a senior official in the Air Force's procurement office, Charles Riechers, had a conflict of interest because of indirect ties to Boeing through his former relationship with another contractor. Boeing said it had no connection with Riechers.
Pemco made the conflict of interest allegation after a story in The Washington Post detailed the relationship between Riechers and an Air Force contractor called Commonwealth Research Institute. That contractor was a subsidiary of an organization that claims Boeing as a client, the Pemco protest said.
On Oct. 14, days after Pemco's allegation, Riechers, 47, was found dead at his home, an apparent suicide.
The GAO said it was not expressing any opinion about the conflict of interest allegation. The Pentagon's inspector general, a special investigative office of the Air Force and local law enforcement agencies are looking into Riechers's work and his death.
Hedgpeth wrote that "the GAO said it had been advised by the Air Force that 'both local law enforcement and federal government investigative authorities are conducting an ongoing investigation into "the root cause" of Mr. Riechers' death.'"
By Robert O'Harrow |
January 8, 2008; 7:00 AM ET
gao
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Posted by: LisaOH | January 8, 2008 3:43 PM
I think your headline caption is wrong. It implies that the event took place overseas in a war zone. You are insulting the guys on the front line by your implication.
Posted by: T. A. Rider | January 10, 2008 2:58 PM
I don't have a problem with exposing waste, fraud, and abuse. They are, I suspect, rampant at high levels of military related civilian run groups and business entities.
I also feel that "murder by suicide" in these circles may be looked upon as viable solutions to extremely bad situations.
IMHO.
Sergeant Major
Posted by: archaeologytoday | January 14, 2008 1:04 PM
I think the Sgt.Major is right. Whatever happened to the local, federal and military investigation of Mr.Riechers'death? "Murder by Suicide" is nothing unheard of around here.
Posted by: Fred Small | January 24, 2008 1:39 PM
Sgt. Major,
I would like to talk to you and share my forty years experience with Air Force Fraud and Waste. Mr Harrow has my phone number but not yours.
Fred Small
Posted by: fred small | January 24, 2008 2:26 PM
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This post seems self serving... what's the point? Assuage some guilt perhaps?
Let me first say that, in general, I applaud the stories of government waste and excess.
However, your article on Mr. Riecher's supposed taking of money was nothing more than reporting on a man taking a job that was arranged by his supervisor. It was not unusual. Yet you presented it like you had found the next Watergate scandal.
In fact, the Post's Ombudsman said your article was lacking "context". That is, you failed to say in your article that by taking the job for two months, as arranged by his boss, Chuck did nothing that many other DoD folk's haven't done before.
Whether the practice is correct or not, you should have included that statement.
By not including it, your one-sided attempt to make a mountain out of a mole hill resulted in a man's death.
I blame you personally, as well as your editor, for his death. I knew Chuck, and thus have the unique perspective to judge your story.
As a life long reader of the Post, and a liberal democrat to boot, I have learned a hard lesson: you can't trust the press: liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, blog or large newspaper, to tell you the unbiased facts.
Sadly, it is a lesson I wish I never had to learn.
Chuck was an honorable and very honest man. Very bright,and yes, a truly loving person.
He would have done great in his DoD position. Any mistakes he made were, tragically, the result of his naivete in trying so very hard to do a good job for his country and his family.
He was, in fact, the exact kind of person I imagine you and your readers would want in this job.
So, when you read about Air Force procurement problems in the future, congratulate yourself that you are a large part of the reason for the problems...you took a good man away from a job he wanted to very hard to do right.
Please make something of this tragedy, and learn from your mistakes.