USAF will fight back if QDR threatens F/A-22, panelist says

Published: Nov 21, 2005
Source: aimpoints.hq.af.mil



The U.S. Air Force will fight to protect the F/A-22 Raptor if it's threatened in the Pentagon's upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, a QDR forum panelist said Nov. 18.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "has an emerging confrontation coming with Congress on a number of things. He can't even get his undersecretary confirmed. The relationship between Congress and Rumsfeld is pretty poisonous, and unless he wants to try to evolve an era of good feelings with Congress in the context of QDR, they're gunning for him," said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information.

"There's a lot of constituencies in the Pentagon in the services that Congress is very happy to work with to reinforce their proclivities, a case in point being the F-22," he said. "I'm sure staff in the department of the Air Force and uniformed officers, I'm sure are working very closely [with congressional staffers] to protect the F-22 if it doesn't do well in the QDR. That's standard behavior."continue..