http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/emails-reveal-u.htmlHow to Get a No-Bid Contract for Russian ChoppersHow did a company best known for its communications gear manage to get a $322 million, no-bid contract to supply the Iraqi military with Russian helicopters? Not even the Pentagon can come up with a convincing explanation.
Yesterday, I spent an hour on the phone with two Defense Department officials who tried to explain to me why ARINC, a Maryland subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, managed to become the United States' largest broker for Russian military aircraft. They were polite and patient, but the only reason they gave me was that ARINC had some sort of one-of-a-kind, "special relationship" with Russia's copter-supplier.
E-mails obtained by Danger Room through the Freedom of Information Act tell a very different story, however. ...
Yet ARINC managed to convince the Defense Department — or more specifically, the Army's Threat Systems Management Office (TSMO) — to give them hundreds of millions in exclusive contracts. The key, according to e-mails released this week, was ARINC's assertion that it was the only company capable of buying the helicopters. It's a claim that strains credulity, given the number of companies and factories involved in this field (and the fact you can practically order one online).
More troubling, Army contracting officials then worked with ARINC officials to tailor the paperwork to back up this claim and justify a sole-source contract."We have gone to great lengths and effort to get these quotes and establish these relationships through legitimate and proper means," an ARINC employee wrote to Army officials in the summer of 2007, many months before the contract was awarded. "They have, once again, reconfirmed that the ARINC Team is the only team has formal approval and formal quotes for these aircraft."
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