Loren Thompson, a noted military analyst with the Lexington Institute, a public policy research group and think tank in Arlington, Va., said the full GAO report is very damaging to the credibility of the Air Force team that picked Northrop over Boeing, and they should be replaced by the Air Force before a second competition is held.
"What's most compelling is the level of documentation for a pattern of unprofessionalism," he said. "There is copious evidence here that the people running this process just did not know what they were doing. So many of these mistakes seem to be traceable not to a bad process but to bad people who were not implementing the process objectively or professionally."
Northrop received unfair credit in several key areas, including fuel off-load requirements, the GAO said. Boeing's tanker actually met more of the requirements for aerial refueling than Northrop's tanker.
Reaction from Boeing supporters in Congress was swift.
"The full GAO report leaves no doubt that the tanker decision was fatally flawed from the outset," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a written statement. "This was either due to incompetence or impropriety. In either case, this contract must be quickly rebid to ensure our warfighters don't pay the price for these mistakes."