By Emelie Rutherford
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) said while he agrees with many of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recommended program changes, he will scrutinize Gates’ proposals for the Air Force tanker and F-22 fighter jet.
Abercrombie, chairman of the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee, told Defense Daily he felt some “grim satisfaction” in learning Gates’ recommendations to the White House for the fiscal year 2010 defense budget.
“If you read through his remarks, they are a virtual paraphrase of the commentary and observations that I and others on the (House) Armed Services Committee have been making for a number of years now…on virtually everything: the (VH-71) presidential helicopter, the (Combat Search and Rescue X, or CSAR-X) helicopter…even the F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter), the Future Combat System (FCS),” Abercrombie said in a phone interview from Hawaii. “This is not a sudden revelation.”
Gates told reporters on April 6 he is recommending canceling Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] VH-71 development program, terminating the CSAR-X competition, accelerating the purchase of F-35s from Lockheed Martin, and terminating the vehicle portion of the FCS effort steered byBoeing [BA] and SAIC [SAI].
Abercrombie said while he is “very empathetic and sympathetic” to the need for modernizing the Army, he has been concerned the developmental FCS program–for a networked system-of-systems including manned and unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aircraft, sensors, and munitions–could not be executed as planned.
The congressman said he understands the concerns FCS boosters like Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) have about lost jobs resulting from Gates’ proposal to overhaul the Army program; thus Abercrombie said he will be looking for “practical alternatives that will still keep people working.”
“It will be very difficult I think to counter Secretary Gates’ analysis and the conclusions he’s reached, because he’s been driven to that,” Abercrombie said. “And we’ve avoided dealing with those realities for so long that it was a collision course of procurement and dollars after a while.”
Abercrombie predicted there will be a “pretty intense dialogue” on Capitol Hill over Gates’ proposed program cuts and changes. He said lawmakers seeking to change Gates’ proposals shouldn’t accuse the Pentagon of failing to understand the threats the United State faces, but should acknowledge and address the “politically very, very tender questions” facing them regarding job losses.
For the F-22, Abercrombie supported lawmakers’ approval in the FY ’09 defense budget of advance-procurement funds for the Pentagon to buy parts for 20 future F-22 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin, on top of the 183 already ordered. The Pentagon, though, only spent FY ’09 monies on long-lead parts for four F-22s.
Gates proposed last week buying only those four aircraft, in the final FY ’09 war supplemental bill, before shutting down the line at 187 F-22s.
Abercrombie said lawmakers’ thwarted plan for the 20 F-22s was intended to “give a transition time that actually meets the definition of the word, from a political standpoint and from a strategic standpoint.”
Asked what he intends to do regarding Gates’ new F-22 proposal, Abercrombie said: “I’m going to say, ‘Look, let’s do what we said we were going to do in the first place.’ The Congress after all is supposed to set the policies….I think the sensible thing to do is to go with what the Congress said we wanted to do in the first place, and give us some breathing room so that we can make a reasonable and comprehensive decision with regard to the F-22 that will not necessarily make everybody happy, but will give a period of accommodation that they can deal with.”
Abercrombie also said he still supports a dual procurement of a replacement aerial-refueling tanker from both contract competitors, even though Gates reiterated last week he opposes buying the aircraft from both Boeing and a Northrop Grumman [NOC]-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team.
“The Congress has waited very, very patiently…over more than eight years and two separate full program process operations, and it still isn’t done,” Abercrombie said about the tanker replacement effort, most recently delayed after a contract protest last year.
Gates wants to solicit bids this summer for a new winner-take-all competition.
“What makes anybody think there’s not going to be another protest?” Abercrombie said. He also questioned if the Pentagon is “fully taking into account the cost of continuing to operate the (existing) tankers”
“If we don’t get these (new) planes and get them in the air now we’re going to have to continue to have to pay these costs of maintenance (of existing tankers) that are going to be very, very high,” Abercrombie said. “There’s no guarantee that the process will work any better the third time than it did the first two. And we could put everybody to work and actually get new planes in the air and service the airplanes that we need to keep in the air.”
Abercrombie said he believes support is increasing on Capitol Hill for a tanker dual procurement.
“I think people want to see something done,” he said. “We are in the middle of a recession. We need people working, and we need them working on something that has practical utility and meets the strategic interests of the country. This proposal does that.”
The congressman declined to lay out any specific proposals for lawmakers to add F-22s funds or direct a tanker dual procurement in the defense budget President Obama is expected to send to Congress next month.
Congress will resume next week after the end of a two-week recess.