From Les Blumenthal in our D.C. bureau:

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks asked President Bush today to resist pressure from three European leaders as the Pentagon reopens the competition for a $35 billion Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract.

"We hope you will reject all outside pressure and ensure a completely fair process," Dicks, D-Belfair, and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said in a letter to Bush.

Dicks and Tiahrt said it would be "unconscionable" if the Pentagon awarded the tanker contract to a team of Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. rather than Boeing. EADS is the parent company of Airbus, Boeing’s rival in the commercial airplane market.

The letter came two days after The News Tribune reported that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel all personally lobbied Bush on the tanker contract, urging him to support the Northrop-EADS bid.

In confirming the three had raised the issue with Bush at "various times," a White House spokesman said Bush told them it was a Pentagon matter, not a White House one. Neither Bush nor anyone on his staff has discussed the tanker contract with Air Force or Defense Department officials, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

The original tanker contract was awarded to Northrop-EADS in February. After congressional auditors upheld a Boeing protest, the Pentagon decided to reopen the competition. Dicks, Tiahrt and other Boeing supporters have alleged that the Defense Department is designing the new competition in a way that will again favor Northrop-EADS.

Tiahrt said he thought it was wrong for Brown, Sarkozy and Merkel to lobby Bush.

"Perhaps they should register as foreign lobbyists," Tiahrt said in a telephone interview. "They were obviously lobbying for Airbus. Congressman Dicks and I are lobbying for a fair competition."

Tiahrt, like Dicks, said he didn’t have any evidence that Bush or the White House pressured the Air Force or the Defense Department on the tanker contract.

"The president has said it doesn’t have anything to do with him, and I believe him," Tiahrt said. "But he does have people who are in contact with the Department of Defense."

The Northrop-EADS tanker would use Airbus A330 airframes, which are currently assembled in France, using French, German, British and Spanish parts. Northrop-EADS has said the tanker eventually will be assembled in Mobile, Ala.

The Boeing tanker would use a 767 airframe built in Everett and modified in Wichita, Kan.

The congressmen said in their letter that it was no secret the Europeans have taken direct aim on the U.S. aerospace market. And the Europeans also "routinely" consider the need to protect their own industrial base when they make their own defense acquisition decisions, the lawmakers said.

Dicks and Tiahrt said "European politicians bypass fair and open competition in support of European jobs."

Meanwhile, they wrote, Pentagon procurement officials refuse to factor in protection of the U.S. industrial base in awarding contracts and waive U.S. regulations to make Europeans bidding on U.S. defense programs more competitive.

"We have already gone too far in accommodating our allies," Tiahrt and Dicks wrote. "... Given the faltering economy here in the United States, the U.S. government awarding a contract to EADS as an economic stimulus package for Europe is unconscionable."