Two F-22 Raptors fly over the Pacific Ocean during a theater security mission March 9 as part of a deployment to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. (MASTER SGT. KEVIN J. GRUENWALD / AIR FORCE)
"The politics of it are such that it's highly likely there's going to be an F-22 buy," Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said June 18. "The exact number and where the money's coming from is a work in progress."
About 2:30 a.m. June 17, the House Armed Services committee voted to spend $369 million to begin buying parts for 12 more F-22s. That would push the fleet to 199. The vote was in defiance of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wants to end production at 187 planes.
Abercrombie said F-22 supporters prevailed by one vote only because he and other committee members had questions about how to pay for 12 more planes, which will cost $2.8 billion. Abercrombie was among those who voted no.
Had the funding question been worked out, 50 or 60 of the committee's 62 members would have voted to buy more F-22s, he said.
"It's not a Democrat or Republican thing at all, but rather a Congress versus the executive in terms of who's in charge," he said.
Last year, Congress included money in the defense budget to begin buying parts for 20 more F-22s, but the Defense Department decided instead to end the program.
"The Constitution says very clearly that Congress is in charge. The Defense Department is there to execute" what Congress decides, Abercrombie said.
"I'm committed to get the Defense Department to do what it was supposed to do in the first place," he said. "We cannot allow the executive to run roughshod over congressional responsibility. They need to learn who's in charge. The Congress is."
Although the F-22 is the Air Force's most advanced and most expensive fighter, it has never been flown in combat, a point Gates has stressed in appearances before House and Senate committees.
When he announced April 6 that he wanted to end F-22 production, Gates said, "For me, it was not a close call. … The military advice that I got was that there is no military requirement for numbers of F-22s beyond the 187."
Gates wants the Air Force to focus more on equipment needed for the wars the U.S. military is fighting today. For the Air Force, that includes UAVs, refueling tankers and special operations aircraft.
In the past, the Air Force has said it needed 381 F-22s. More recently, it lowered the number to 243; then Gates imposed a 187 cap. The changing numbers have irked committee members.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who introduced an amendment to fund the 12 F-22s, said, "We on the committee have yet to see any study or analysis in support of Secretary Gates' assertion the 187 aircraft is sufficient to meet future air threats."
Abercrombie cited a June 9 letter from Gen. John Corley, chief of Air Combat Command, who said, "To my knowledge, there are no studies that demonstrate that 187 F-22s are adequate to support our national military strategy."
Corley appears to contradict his bosses, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who wrote in The Washington Post that "we do not recommend that F-22s be included in the fiscal 2010 defense budget."
Said Abercrombie, "I don't have a clue whether 187 is adequate for our national military strategy." The numbers have changed too often for lawmakers to have any confidence in them, he said.
For many lawmakers, the military need for F-22s is only one factor in deciding how many to buy. Jobs are equally important. Plane-maker Lockheed Martin has told lawmakers that the program employs 25,000 workers directly and supports another 90,000 jobs in companies that produce F-22 parts. The jobs are spread among 44 states.
Asked whether President Barack Obama would veto a defense budget that included money for F-22s that Gates doesn't want, Abercrombie said it's unlikely. With troops in two wars and congressional elections looming in 2010, vetoing the defense budget would be politically risky. And "it would be overridden in a nanosecond," he said.
For now, the $369 million for F-22s comes from money that had been budgeted for Energy Department cleanups at nuclear weapon sites. In his amendment, Bishop said the money is to be taken from projects that are ahead of schedule or are so far behind that they won't be able to spend money allocated for 2010.
Abercrombie said where money for F-22s ultimately comes from "is a work in progress."
If 12 planes are built, they would be delivered to the Air Force in 2013 or 2014, and would cost $234 million apiece, according to calculations by the House Armed Services Committee staff.
F-22s being built today cost about $175 million to $180 million apiece. The price would increase because costs would be divided among 12 planes. If 20 were bought, the cost of each might be less, an aide said.
Just hours before the House Armed Services Committee rescued future F-22s, the full House approved spending $600 million to buy four of the stealth fighters with money in the $106 billion "emergency supplemental" bill used to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those four planes would bring the total F-22 fleet to Gates' top number, 187.
Through an add-on to the war-funding bill, lawmakers also thwarted Gates' efforts to end another aircraft program, the C-17 cargo plane.
Gates said the 205 C-17s that are already in the fleet or under construction are enough, and he included no money in the 2010 defense budget for additional C-17s. But the House and Senate added $2.7 billion to the war-funding bill to buy eight C-17s and seven smaller C-130J cargo planes.
The additional C-17s are "pure pork," said Christopher Hellman, a defense budget analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Buying more C-17s "can only be characterized as a jobs program."
And C-17 maker Boeing has done just that. In February, the company boasted that C-17 production sustained 30,000 jobs in 43 states, with concentrations in California, Texas, Missouri and Connecticut.
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