|
Armed services lawmakers defend F-22 |
|
By Roxana Tiron
|
|
Posted: 11/03/08 07:30 PM [ET] |
Several powerful members of the House Armed Services Committee are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to spend $140 million Congress appropriated to keep a controversial fighter plane program alive.
Congress authorized and appropriated that money so that a new president could buy more F-22 Raptors than the 183 the Pentagon now intends to buy. Whether to continue buying the expensive fighter will be one of the main decisions a new president will have to make.
The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, John Young, disapproved an Air Force request to obligate $140 million for the purchase of items for the fighter plane that take a long time to produce, such as components for electronic warfare and radar.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England also is planning to include the funding for advance procurement of items for four fighter jets in the next war supplemental request rather than obligate the funds already provided in the 2009 defense appropriations bill, according to a letter sent to Gates by Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and Jim Saxton (R-N.J.).
The four lawmakers took issue with that plan.
“We expect the Department to approve the Air Force obligation of $140 million for the F-22A,” the lawmakers wrote to Gates.
The issue of buying more F-22s has been a sore point between the Pentagon leadership and the Air Force, and partly led to the ousting of the secretary of the Air Force and the service’s chief of staff earlier this year.
In its 2009 budget request the Pentagon did not include money to keep producing the F-22 or to shut down the production line at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., plant. But the Air Force and contractors with Lockheed Martin have heavily lobbied Congress and the Pentagon to extend production of the Raptor.
Production on the F-22 is slated to end after 2011, when the defense contractor is expected to deliver the last of 183 aircraft.
The Air Force has stated over the years that it has a requirement for 381 F-22s to maintain air superiority, but Pentagon leaders so far have green-lighted production for only 183 jets.
|
