'Ethical readiness' mandatory for defense industry.

• Author: Farrell, Lawrence P., Jr.
• Position: President's perspective

At a time of great stress for our nation's armed forces, it is worth reaffirming the need for industry leaders to engage in a meaningful discussion on the impact of the recent procurement scandals and to figure out how best to move forward.

As our military services continue to fight extended wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other troubled spots, the defense industry cannot afford to be discredited, even by the appearance of impropriety. The stakes are high for industry and even higher for those whom we serve, the war fighters.

With respect to the latest ethics-related events, the industry needs to come to grips with what went wrong and, joining with government, reclaim the ethical high ground.

NDIA believes that the best way for the industry to regain and bolster credibility is to assert the principles of "self-policing," when it comes to business ethics. As many experts have observed, no amount of outside scrutiny or independent investigations can make up for the lack of self governance in a corporation and industry.

Our readers may recall I made similar points in previous columns, when I raised the issue of business ethics in the early days of the Bush administration's defense buildup for the war against terrorism.

At the time I cautioned that the industry had to be careful about not repeating the excesses of the 1980s.

Unfortunately, the Air Force tanker probe illustrates how a business ethics issue not only tarnishes the reputation of the industry but also can compromise a service's ability to acquire a much needed weapon system.

In light of a now-widening probe over tainted Air Force contracts, we cannot forget that, no matter what inappropriate actions were conducted in the process of negotiating a tanker contract, the fact remains that the Air Force still has a need to upgrade its aging tanker fleet. We need to be able to talk about the requirement for new tankers, but in today's environment, any discussions of tankers are inextricable from the ethics issue--making it almost impossible to debate the subject solely on the basis of its merits.

Not only have these unfortunate developments jeopardized the service's ability to acquire needed equipment, but they also might stand in the way of senior military officers' promotions and assignments, causing disruptions in the military command structure. The tanker issue, meanwhile, has prompted the Army to commission a study to the Institute for Defense Analyses on how the service should deal...