Sitting At Budget Controls, Official Throttles Program

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
January 12, 2008
Pg. 1C
By Bob Cox, Star-Telegram staff writer
Considering Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England's résumé, it's hard to imagine anyone saying that he's acting against the interests of the defense industry or the military. But that's what some lobbyists and consultants in Washington have been saying.
The leaders of two defense think tanks have chastised England for not allowing the Air Force to buy an additional 200 of Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor fighter jets, at a cost more than $40 billion.
A former top Lockheed and General Dynamics executive in Fort Worth, England served two stints as secretary of the Navy under President Bush. Since becoming the Pentagon's chief administrator in 2005, England has resisted Air Force pleas to buy more F-22s than the 183 now planned.
In separate recent opinion pieces, and Frank Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security Policy and Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute charge that England has ignored expert analysis and that his actions could leave the Air Force vulnerable in combat with enemies possessing more modern aircraft. Thompson also works as a lobbyist for Lockheed.
Gaffney, in a Washington Times piece, said England was "waging war" against the F-22. Supersonic and supposedly nearly invisible to radar, the F-22 "is quite simply the best fighter aircraft in the world" and is needed to defend against enemies that may obtain new high-technology jets being developed by Russia and China, Gaffney said.
"Yet, in Gordon England's Pentagon, the Raptor is an endangered species," he wrote.
"What's going on here has less to do with military requirements than the deputy secretary being irritated at the Air Force, which he feels tried to trick him," Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, said in an interview.
Buying more F-22s is the top priority of Air Force generals, many of whom rose through the ranks as fighter pilots. The Air Force insists that it needs 381 of the aircraft, which cost about $200 million each ($350 million, counting research and development costs).
As part of the 2006 defense budget process, directed by England, the Pentagon and the Air Force agreed to cap the F-22 program at 183 planes. The last 60 are in production or under contract.
England has interpreted the 2006 budget agreement "as a commitment to terminate the line after 60 planes," Thompson said. "The Air Force interpreted it as a way to keep the F-22 going beyond [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld's tenure" so it could argue the case with the next administration.
Thompson, who has close ties to senior Air Force leaders, charged in an article written for defense publications that England had been advised in three separate studies that the Air Force needed more F-22s.
An aide to England said the secretary would not comment on the issue because of ongoing Pentagon deliberations on the 2009 defense budget.
Lockheed's Fort Worth plant has a stake in the argument. It builds the F-22 center fuselage, with about 1,800 people working on the program.
But finding additional money for the F-22 could mean less money for the F-35 Lightning II, the aircraft the Fort Worth plant expects to build for the next two decades or more. England has been a staunch proponent of the F-35, which some experts say will incorporate newer technology, be more versatile and cost less than half the price of an F-22.
When asked to comment on the F-22 controversy, Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky said: "The issue of keeping the F-22 line open is a matter between the Defense Department and the Air Force. It's not a issue for Lockheed Martin to address.
"With respect to Mr. England, we recognize that he faces many budgetary challenges. As he meets these challenges, Lockheed Martin has the fullest faith that he will do what he considers to be in the best interests of the Defense Department and the nation."
Thompson and Gaffney probably are not speaking for the Air Force directly, said Winslow Wheeler, analyst for the Center for Defense Information and a frequent critic of defense programs.
But Wheeler said Air Force leaders like Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley won't be unhappy with their allies' comments.
The last of the F-22s now on order will be delivered by 2011.
The Pentagon had planned to spend $550 million in 2009 to pay Lockheed to begin shutting down the F-22 production line in Marietta, Ga. Air Force leaders have been lobbying instead to order parts for more F-22s.
Now England reportedly has directed that the money be used to repair the Air Force's aging F-15 fighters, which the Raptor is designed to replace.
Critics say that's not good.
"It seems obvious," Gaffney wrote, "that the momentous decision of whether to terminate the F-22 at just 180 aircraft -- one that could prove fateful in deterring a future conflict with increasingly hostile and aggressive adversaries -- should be made not by a lame-duck presidency but a newly mandated one."
 
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