Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
National Journal's CongressDailyPM
February 6, 2008 President Bush's FY09 Defense budget "doesn't come close" to addressing the real needs of the military, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said today. So instead of waiting for next year's Defense appropriations bill, Murtha said he would seek to address some of the problems in the next FY08 emergency war supplemental by adding money to buy more C-17 and C-130 transport planes and F-22 fighters. Murtha spoke with reporters after a closed subcommittee hearing with Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, and other top Air Force officers that focused on serious problems with the fleet of older models of the F-15 air superiority fighter.
Another of the top-line fighters crashed over the weekend, the fourth to go down since November. An F-15 broke apart in mid-air during a Nov. 2 flight near St. Louis, leading to the grounding of 162 of the 441 aging fighters. The groundings have created a gap in the nation's air defense capabilities, but have less impact in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more missions are flown by the newer F-15E, a ground attack model.
The problems with the F-15s are among "the hidden costs of the war [in Iraq], because we haven't upgraded, haven't bought for the future," which he has been warning about for some time, Murtha said. "I'm trying to look past this war, to look to the future." Murtha said the Air Force is not sure what needs to be done about the structural problems with the oldest F-15s, although he said he believed the Air Force would have to try to fix some of those fighters. "What we're trying to do is eliminate that [need], to skip to the Joint Strike Fighter and to the F-22," he said. The JSF, or F-35, is just entering production and the FY09 budget has procurement funds for the last of the 183 F-22s that the administration has agreed to buy. The Air Force wants more than twice that many F-22s, which are to replace the F-15s.
The president's budget would use money originally intended to close the F-22 line to help fix the F-15s, and lawmakers from Missouri, where new F-15Es are being built for export, want to buy more of them for the Air Force. But Murtha said that is not going to happen. "If we have our way this year, we'll continue to reach forward to the future, instead of taking care of the past," he said.
-- by Otto Kreisher
February 6, 2008 President Bush's FY09 Defense budget "doesn't come close" to addressing the real needs of the military, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said today. So instead of waiting for next year's Defense appropriations bill, Murtha said he would seek to address some of the problems in the next FY08 emergency war supplemental by adding money to buy more C-17 and C-130 transport planes and F-22 fighters. Murtha spoke with reporters after a closed subcommittee hearing with Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, and other top Air Force officers that focused on serious problems with the fleet of older models of the F-15 air superiority fighter.
Another of the top-line fighters crashed over the weekend, the fourth to go down since November. An F-15 broke apart in mid-air during a Nov. 2 flight near St. Louis, leading to the grounding of 162 of the 441 aging fighters. The groundings have created a gap in the nation's air defense capabilities, but have less impact in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more missions are flown by the newer F-15E, a ground attack model.
The problems with the F-15s are among "the hidden costs of the war [in Iraq], because we haven't upgraded, haven't bought for the future," which he has been warning about for some time, Murtha said. "I'm trying to look past this war, to look to the future." Murtha said the Air Force is not sure what needs to be done about the structural problems with the oldest F-15s, although he said he believed the Air Force would have to try to fix some of those fighters. "What we're trying to do is eliminate that [need], to skip to the Joint Strike Fighter and to the F-22," he said. The JSF, or F-35, is just entering production and the FY09 budget has procurement funds for the last of the 183 F-22s that the administration has agreed to buy. The Air Force wants more than twice that many F-22s, which are to replace the F-15s.
The president's budget would use money originally intended to close the F-22 line to help fix the F-15s, and lawmakers from Missouri, where new F-15Es are being built for export, want to buy more of them for the Air Force. But Murtha said that is not going to happen. "If we have our way this year, we'll continue to reach forward to the future, instead of taking care of the past," he said.
-- by Otto Kreisher