The original contract to EADS was scuttled because of the Government Accountability Office, which found that the selection process had been handled improperly -- specifically, that the Air Force <i>&quot;did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation&quot;</i>, and that the Air Force <i>&quot;conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing&quot;</i> [0].<p>I lived in Seattle at the time, and it was widely remarked by Boeing IDS employees that the protest Boeing filed was a remarkably unusual step.  They lose out on contracts all the time and just move on to the next thing; it&#x27;s generally considered bad form for a defense contractor to throw a fit about losing out on a contract.  But there were a lot of shenanigans, as detailed in the GAO report, which is why the decision was ultimately reversed.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20080625201918&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.king5.com&#x2F;sharedcontent&#x2F;northwest&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;gao_boeing.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20080625201918&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.king5.c...</a>