WASHINGTON – Alabama will have to wait another six months before learning if it will have the U.S. manufacturing base for the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers, but state officials say they are confident Alabama will still win the work.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday the Pentagon would conduct a limited rebid for the $35 billion contract that was awarded earlier this year to a team made up of Northrop Grumman Corp. and the European maker of Airbus. The team plans to assemble the planes at Mobile’s Brookley Field Industrial Complex, creating an estimated 1,500 jobs.

Both sides in the fight claimed victory over the decision. But Alabama officials took comfort in the fact that the review will look only at eight criteria where government auditors found problems in the initial bidding.

“Some of my colleagues wanted to start this competition over from square one,” said Rep. Jo Bonner, a Republican from Mobile. “The urgency of the need simply does not allow time for that to happen.”

Bonner and others noted Gates’ emphasis that the military needs the new tankers now to replace the existing 50-year-old fleet.

Sen. Richard Shelby, a Tuscaloosa Republican, called Gates’ decision “an appropriate solution to remedy the minor procedural flaws” that the Government Accounting Office found in the initial award.

“It is vitally important that members of Congress support this expeditious path forward that not only satisfies the recommendations offered by GAO, but also ensures that the Air Force’s urgent and compelling need to field a tanker is met as quickly as possible,” he said.

Critics have argued the Northrop award amounts to outsourcing U.S. military construction overseas because much of its plane would be made in Europe. The controversy, the huge size of the contract and repeated delays have made the tanker among the most closely watched military procurements in years.

After the Air Force awarded the contract to the Northrop team in February, the competing bidder, Boeing Co., protested. Last month, the Government Accountability Office ruled that the bidding process favored the Northrop team, prompting the Pentagon to reconsider.

“We’ve already won the competition once, and we will again,” said Mobile County Commission President Stephen Nodine.