A 1999 memo said Lockheed had "provided no verifiable data" to support its claim that the higher C-130J price reflected technological improvements in the aircraft. It said that "in a competitive commercial environment, one would expect to see continuous product improvements without any significant increases in the price."
The inspector general's report in July concluded that the Air Force had failed to fully protect the government against overpricing.
Dollars aside, faulty computer systems and mechanical flaws have beset the C-130J.
Maj. Gen. William W. Hodges, an Air Force acquisitions director, said the C-130J's costs are now audited more closely, and that the plane would be ready to fly troops and supplies into combat by year's end.
"This airplane is already flying and doing a lot of great things," Hodges said.
That's no solace to Ken Pedeleose, an engineer for the contract management agency, which relies on the auditors' findings. The whistle-blower said he asked the inspector general's office to investigate the C-130J acquisition in 2000, but nothing happened until he and several colleagues went public with their complaints two years later.
"There's zero doubt in my mind that the taxpayers got ripped off," said Pedeleose, who works at Lockheed's Marietta, Ga., plant.
Meanwhile, the veteran auditor who is knowledgeable about the C-130J and who spoke anonymously to protect his job, said summaries of his work could easily be made public. "If I went into an audit knowing that my report would be released to the public, I could make sure that no proprietary information was included," he said.
Contractor lobby groups maintain that it would be almost impossible to remove all sensitive material from summaries.
"I don't think it could be done," said Stan Soloway, a former Clinton administration procurement official who is president of a lobby organization. "I'm not sure what we'd gain."
Brian, of the Project on Government Oversight, sees it differently.
"They've become almost a stealth agency," she said of the auditors. "Anything that they're finding -- if they are finding anything -- isn't going anywhere because no one knows about it."
