Stealth spending at the Pentagon

Source URL: http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=11092
Posted at: http://www.air-attack/com/news/news_article/1545

The Air Force wants to expand its fleet of F-22 Raptors. But at $130 million apiece, these stealthy planes from Lockheed Martin Corp. are the most expensive fighters ever. So the Pentagon is proposing to buy its next 20 Raptors piecemeal: sections of the fuselage in fiscal 2007, much of the innards in future years.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) smells something funny here. He says the Air Force is trying to minimize the near-term expense of the F-22s while ensuring that eventually Congress will feel obliged to fund all 20 planes. After all, lawmakers don't want voters to learn that a bunch of half-built fighters are parked in a hangar somewhere. "This approach hamstrings Congress to continue supporting the program, without regard for possible spiraling costs, slips in schedule, or material changes to specifications," McCain told BusinessWeek in an e-mail interview.

McCain and other budget hawks say they're seeing more of this kind of gimmickry as the Pentagon strains to maintain the costly occupation of Iraq. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain is set to become chairman of the panel next year. In coming days, the once and possibly future Presidential candidate expects to back a slate of acquisition-reform proposals to be introduced by Senator John Warner (R-Va.), the current committee chairman.

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