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07-16-2009, 10:40 PM
Gates and Congress Duel Over Weapons Systems (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124778566107954603.html)
CHICAGO -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was determined to forge ahead with changing the priorities of the U.S. military on the same day lawmakers voted to thwart a key component of his plan.
The dueling visions of what the U.S. fighting forces should look like looms as one of the major battles between the Obama administration and Congress. Mr. Gates unveiled a $534 billion Defense Department budget in April that would cut back or cancel costly weapons systems he believes aren't relevant to the military's needs. But some members of Congress are pushing back, restoring funding to weapons systems that Mr. Gates had sought to kill.
"The time has come to draw a line and take a stand against the business-as-usual approach to national defense," Mr. Gates said in a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago. "If the Department of Defense can't figure out a way to defend the United States on a budget of more than half a trillion dollars a year, then our problems are much bigger than anything that can be cured by buying a few more ships and planes," he told a crowd of business executives.
Hours before Mr. Gates spoke, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense moved to restore funding to three key programs, including a costly replacement helicopter for the White House and the supersonic F-22 Raptor fighter.
The F-22, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., is regarded as the most advanced fighter ever built. Many lawmakers believe that buying more of them is crucial to maintaining a military advantage in conventional threats that could emerge from countries such as Russia or China.
Mr. Gates thinks the 187 jets the U.S. currently has ordered are enough. He believes that more F-22s, with a price tag of $143 million each, would rob the Pentagon of resources it needs for current conflicts and a new fighter, the F-35 Lightning II. He has staked much of his political capital on blocking Congress from acquiring additional F-22s, and President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any bill that increases funding for the fighter.
However, some members of Congress appear determined to keep the project alive. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Thursday added $369 million to the 2010 defense budget as a sort of down payment on 12 more F-22s, following a similar move in the House Armed Services Committee that passed in the House. The subcommittee, headed by Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. John Murtha, also went against the White House by allocating $485 million to continue work on the presidential helicopter, a project terminated by Mr. Gates earlier this summer. A third program Mr. Gates had sought to end, the development of a new engine for the F-35 fighter, received $560 million.
In the Senate, lawmakers are also trying to add funding back in for the F-22.
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose state includes the F-22s Marietta assembly line, said in an interview that he expected broad support to buy seven more F-22s for $1.75 billion. Opposing his efforts are Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). In his speech, Mr. Gates lambasted supporters of the plane for coming up with "far fetched" usages in order to keep production going, such as hunting Somali pirates with an aircraft he believes has only limited use against advanced fighter planes. He also took aim at critics who say the Pentagon is ill-prepared for a big foe, explaining how the U.S. would stack up against China, whose air force would be outnumbered, and outclassed, by the 2,500 manned combat aircraft the U.S. expects to have by 2020.
Mr. Gates said his critics' arguments against his initiatives were "the holy trinity of business as usual."
The rising political stakes come during a week that is marked by some of the first defense-industry layoffs directly tied to the Pentagon's crackdown on weapons programs. Lockheed Martin announced 600 layoffs tied to the Pentagon's termination of the VH-71 program, while Boeing Co. said it was cutting 1,000 defense jobs because of a stop-work order on part of the Army Future Combat Systems program, and cutbacks to missile defense efforts.
CHICAGO -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was determined to forge ahead with changing the priorities of the U.S. military on the same day lawmakers voted to thwart a key component of his plan.
The dueling visions of what the U.S. fighting forces should look like looms as one of the major battles between the Obama administration and Congress. Mr. Gates unveiled a $534 billion Defense Department budget in April that would cut back or cancel costly weapons systems he believes aren't relevant to the military's needs. But some members of Congress are pushing back, restoring funding to weapons systems that Mr. Gates had sought to kill.
"The time has come to draw a line and take a stand against the business-as-usual approach to national defense," Mr. Gates said in a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago. "If the Department of Defense can't figure out a way to defend the United States on a budget of more than half a trillion dollars a year, then our problems are much bigger than anything that can be cured by buying a few more ships and planes," he told a crowd of business executives.
Hours before Mr. Gates spoke, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense moved to restore funding to three key programs, including a costly replacement helicopter for the White House and the supersonic F-22 Raptor fighter.
The F-22, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., is regarded as the most advanced fighter ever built. Many lawmakers believe that buying more of them is crucial to maintaining a military advantage in conventional threats that could emerge from countries such as Russia or China.
Mr. Gates thinks the 187 jets the U.S. currently has ordered are enough. He believes that more F-22s, with a price tag of $143 million each, would rob the Pentagon of resources it needs for current conflicts and a new fighter, the F-35 Lightning II. He has staked much of his political capital on blocking Congress from acquiring additional F-22s, and President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any bill that increases funding for the fighter.
However, some members of Congress appear determined to keep the project alive. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Thursday added $369 million to the 2010 defense budget as a sort of down payment on 12 more F-22s, following a similar move in the House Armed Services Committee that passed in the House. The subcommittee, headed by Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. John Murtha, also went against the White House by allocating $485 million to continue work on the presidential helicopter, a project terminated by Mr. Gates earlier this summer. A third program Mr. Gates had sought to end, the development of a new engine for the F-35 fighter, received $560 million.
In the Senate, lawmakers are also trying to add funding back in for the F-22.
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose state includes the F-22s Marietta assembly line, said in an interview that he expected broad support to buy seven more F-22s for $1.75 billion. Opposing his efforts are Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). In his speech, Mr. Gates lambasted supporters of the plane for coming up with "far fetched" usages in order to keep production going, such as hunting Somali pirates with an aircraft he believes has only limited use against advanced fighter planes. He also took aim at critics who say the Pentagon is ill-prepared for a big foe, explaining how the U.S. would stack up against China, whose air force would be outnumbered, and outclassed, by the 2,500 manned combat aircraft the U.S. expects to have by 2020.
Mr. Gates said his critics' arguments against his initiatives were "the holy trinity of business as usual."
The rising political stakes come during a week that is marked by some of the first defense-industry layoffs directly tied to the Pentagon's crackdown on weapons programs. Lockheed Martin announced 600 layoffs tied to the Pentagon's termination of the VH-71 program, while Boeing Co. said it was cutting 1,000 defense jobs because of a stop-work order on part of the Army Future Combat Systems program, and cutbacks to missile defense efforts.