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In 2003, Senator John McCain addressed a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the proposed lease of 100 Boeing aircraft for use by the Air Force. (Stephen Crowley/New York Times) |
Defense hawk McCain also proves a tough military critic
WASHINGTON - In more than two decades in Congress, Senator John McCain has earned a reputation as a leading defense hawk, using his perch on the powerful Armed Services Committee and his war-hero status to advocate for a stronger military.
But in the plush office towers of some of America's leading defense companies, the recipients of billions of dollars of Pentagon contracts each year, the presumptive Republican nominee for president has another label: persona non grata.
For even as McCain has railed against cuts in defense spending and sought to increase soldier benefits and operating funds, he has been equally dogged in his efforts to cancel some of the industry's most prized weapons contracts and micromanage others that he believes are wasteful and come at the expense of more pressing needs, according to a Globe review of his Senate record.
The result: Despite McCain's national security credentials and staunch support for continuing the war in Iraq, he has only slightly exceeded presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama in campaign contributions from the defense industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The latest figures released by the Federal Election Commission show that McCain has raised $301,284 and Obama has raised $300,403 from employees who gave more than $200 and, in McCain's case, contributions from political action committees.
Industry officials and defense analysts said McCain's low level of financial support reflects deep anxiety among arms manufacturers at the prospect of a President McCain with the power to upend the Pentagon procurement budget. Some leading Wall Street analysts have recently cautioned clients that a McCain presidency could eat into some of their profits from big-ticket weapon systems.
"He has shown a lot of suspicion and sometimes hostility toward the largest defense companies," said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at the Teal Group, a market research firm in Washington that specializes in aerospace and defense. "He hasn't hesitated in taking on the largest defense companies and hasn't hesitated taking on the largest defense programs."
Government watchdog groups and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress credit McCain for helping to save taxpayer dollars and redirect funds to more pressing concerns. But others say his desire to play the role of maverick has also led him to overreach, at times seeking to apply contract changes or reforms to numerous programs without a full assessment of the impact. His abrasive personal style has also alienated many in the arms industry, according to several executives who recalled meetings with McCain in which he browbeat them.
"John McCain puts his country and the needs of the men and women of our armed forces first, even if they conflict occasionally with the interests of defense industry executives," said Crystal Benton, a campaign spokeswoman.
McCain's aim has extended to what he has disparagingly called a "morass of bureaucratic fiefdoms" in the Pentagon that oversee weapons acquisition. In remarks before a group of Latino public officials in Washington yesterday, McCain said, "We must reform the system that we use today to purchase weapons in the defense of this nation," citing an example of "a little ship that was going to cost $140 million and it cost $400 million."
His run-ins with senior Pentagon civilians and project officers have become legendary.
When the Air Force wasn't satisfying his concerns that a multibillion-dollar deal in 2003 to lease air-refueling planes from
McCain kept pushing until he got the competition reopened. When his influence on a key subcommittee overseeing air and land forces was not enough to address his concerns about the lease deal, the senator used his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee to continue investigating.
"They were doing defense oversight on the Commerce Committee," said Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.
Ashdown, who cooperated with McCain's Senate aides in investigating the tanker deal, said McCain's efforts demonstrated how strongly he feels about checking what he considers defense industry largesse.
The investigation by his Senate staff into that program eventually resulted in a top Air Force procurement official and a company executive being sent to jail.
Benton, McCain's spokeswoman, said his efforts on that campaign alone had saved taxpayers $6 billion.
McCain's weapons oversight efforts appear to stem from a deep-seated suspicion of the power wielded by large arms manufacturers and their lobbyists. To justify his scrutiny, he has cited the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961, in which he warned about the influence of the "military-industrial complex."
"Eisenhower is rolling over in his grave," McCain told a 2003 meeting with representatives from government watchdog groups and staff members to discuss the Air Force's leasing deal with Boeing, according to two participants in the meeting.
Over the years, McCain has taken on ships, aircraft, and other equipment developed by defense companies for all the military branches. He has voted against annual defense appropriations bills that he believed were too accommodating to industry interests, such as one in 2000 that he said was "so full of wasteful spending and smoke and mirrors gimmickry that what good lies within is overwhelmed by the bad."
His professional Senate staff - led by top defense aide Chris Paul, a former fighter pilot - has relied on variety of means, including pressure and subpoenas, to obtain Pentagon documents, dig up internal company e-mails, and question witnesses.
But it his also his personal approach that has upset defense industry officials.
"He has had some very tough meetings with Lockheed and Boeing and Northrop, and the executives came away feeling they were not treated in a professional way," said a former senior Pentagon official and defense industry insider who is now advising Obama. Like some other government and industry officials, he requested anonymity to speak critically of the man who could be the next president.
McCain has been particularly critical of billions of dollars of weapons funding approved by Congress but not sought by the military services, such as the C-130J cargo plane manufactured by Lockheed Martin. One industry official said a top company executive was "absolutely blistered" after an encounter with McCain over the program several years ago.
McCain has also targeted programs he believes are intended to safeguard jobs in lawmakers' home states, not for military necessity. A prime example was the Seawolf nuclear-powered attack submarine being built in Groton, Conn., in the early 1990s. McCain singled it out as a superfluous Cold War weapon being built solely to prop up New England shipyards. Politicians in Connecticut are still sore at McCain for his role in cutting back the fleet to just three boats.
At other times, he has sought changes in how the Pentagon awards contracts, such as the Army's multibillion-dollar Future Combat Systems program. The next-generation ground vehicles, under contract to Boeing, were originally ordered under a special authority that would give the Army and the contractor more flexibility on costs. In 2005 McCain pressured the Army to adopt a more traditional contract that followed federal acquisition regulations.
"McCain is a conservative and a hard-liner on national security, but he is quite disparaging in his comments about the defense industry," said Loren Thompson, chief executive officer of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. "And he is not reluctant to identify the weapons he doesn't think need to be built."
McCain himself previewed what may be in store if he is elected president during a speech on defense policy last year to the Hudson Institute, in which he said the military needs more troops but will have to pay for them by cutting wasteful spending, "including unnecessary Pentagon programs" that he said are the result of a "dysfunctional procurement system."
"McCain and the defense industry [have] a funny relationship," remarked the former Pentagon official and industry executive, "because the CEOs who run the industry are mostly Republicans, and they want to like McCain. But he treats them so badly."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
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