Saying he “didn’t molt from a hawk into a dove on Jan. 20, 2009,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sharply criticized Congress on Thursday for trying to push more F-22 fighter jets into the Pentagon budget than he and President Obama say the country needs.
“If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right?” Mr. Gates said in an acerbic, sometimes withering speech to the Economic Club of Chicago. “It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual.” From his point of view, that means overbuying weapons for wars the nation is unlikely to fight…
To the consternation of the Pentagon and the White House, liberal Democrats like Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts have said they support the additional planes, arguing that their production can help preserve jobs in districts across the country.
In response, Mr. Obama reiterated a threat on Monday to veto next year’s military spending bill unless the extra planes are removed. Mr. Gates went to Chicago to reinforce the message. “The president has drawn that line, and that line is with regard to a veto, and it’s real,” Mr. Gates told the club…
Although Mr. Gates focused much of his speech on the F-22 and other programs he wants to cut back or scrap, like a new presidential helicopter — he said it would allow “the president, among other things, to cook dinner while in flight under nuclear attack” — he also made his larger argument for changing the way the Pentagon does business…
Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia who has led the fight for the plane, said in an interview this week that the F-22’s strongest support had come from veteran senators in both parties who want continued American air superiority. “That is what resonates,” he said.
Mr. Chambliss said the concern about losing military jobs had also been important, particularly for senators who are “on the fence.” Lockheed Martin Corporation assembles the plane in Mr. Chambliss’ home state, in Marietta, and uses suppliers in 44 states.
Mr. Gates, in speaking to reporters, said with some exasperation that “the more they buy of stuff we don’t need, the less we have available for the stuff we do,” adding: “It’s just as simple as that. It ain’t a complicated problem.”
Gates nailed these bought-and-paid-for political hacks.
“Gates nailed these bought-and-paid-for political hacks.
Oh..and like Gates is not a bought and payed for hack himself??
get a clue, will ya?
-s
These planes are needed as the aging fleet of F-15’s, F-16’s, and F-18’s (yes, there is a navalized version of the F-22) are simply too old and clunky for the long term — and Mr Obama needs to wizen up and ignore the price tag argument.
Wiping out the enemy’s A/F quickly and effectively means more time for the guys on the ground to get their work done and have the war over sooner. The F-22 can accomplish that better than the mish-mash we have now.
How about we cancel the stimulus and spend that money on these planes?
Where is the similar outrage when it comes to the pork barrel bribes used to buy Democrat congressm votes?
http://bit.ly/Z5Ne3
Just wait until someday when ground troops are denied air support because there are no planes available. The first ones screaming will be these bleeding heart liberal like Eideard.
I pray for the day that a Democrat understands the idea of Economies of Scale. The reason each unit is so expensive is becuase of the previous cuts. If the government was in charge, the xbox 360 would still be $400, and no longer in production.
A prime example is the Seawolf and Virginia Subs. Seawolves were stopped by congress because they were too expensive, and the Government designed the Virginia class to be a cheaper alternative. Ultimately Each Virginia class will end up being more expensive than the boats they were made to replace, because of development costs, reduction in production numbers, and cost overruns.
Another thing to note is that airframes are built of aluminium, and have a limited lifespan. Eventually, we’ll see a series of crashes involving F16, F18, ior F15, and we’ll have to ground the whole fleet of that respective airplace. Why do you think we don’t have F-14s anymore?
#2 is correct.
buy the planes! air superiority not jobs.
We can build something like five F-35’s for the cost of one F-22. The F-22 is an interceptor with some ground attack ability strapped on. We don’t need lots of interceptors, we need stealthy strike fighters (F-35’s).
The F-22 does have longer range, better filling the role of the old F-117, but the Navy and Marine variants of the F-35 can be launched from aircraft carriers and remote locations. The F-22 is Air Force only.
No, people like Eideard are the ones that denied air support to the South Vietnamese after the North violated the Paris Peace Accords. Any screaming would be for political benefit.
The IAF has the best pilots and the best kill rates using their shoddy old F15s. The IAF teaches their guys to basically run up to the enemy and dump on them with their missles or cannons.
The USAF IIRC teaches their guys to engage at the maximum range possible. So like 100 miles away.
What does having a F22 matter vs 10 F15s, when they all carry the same missles?
Sure, have a huge wing of F22s for the risky missions, if we have to blow something up but don’t want anyone to know it’s us, show off our planes, ect.
But also carry a shed load of F15s, and just strap the best missiles on them. If one of them gets nailed by the enemy, so what, it didn’t cost much. If an F22 got nailed in the same situation, then F me you just lost a whole crap load of money.
Who are they fighting anyways? Russia has 3 awesome planes, China has 400 shitty planes, 2 phenominal ones, and everyone else is our ally, and has F22-equivalent planes. Are we gearing up to go to war with the UK or the EU or something?
Take that money and give it to the damn Marines so they can get rid of those huge Vietnam-era mobile radio packs.
Make a space born laser satelite that heats up the enemy plane’s fuel tanks, and makes the thing explode. Don’t tell anyone about it, and only use it if there’s a massive invasion on american soil, or if you see Osama.
All this wrangling over money will be moot when what money we do have will be worthless.
Wiki-Under the Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF) program, a carrier-borne variant of the F-22 with swing-wings was proposed for the U.S. Navy to replace the F-14 Tomcat, though the program was subsequently cancelled in 1993. A two-seat F-22B trainer variant was planned, but was cut in 1996 to save development costs./Wiki
The F-14 was retired after they became too expensive to fly and not because they have aluminum airframes.
If people knew a little more about aircraft they would know the airframe could possibly fly for a hundred years. Anyone ever hear of the b-52? Approaching 60 years now.
#2 “…Wiping out the enemy’s A/F quickly and effectively means more time for the guys on the ground to get their work done and have the war over sooner.”
Right… ‘cos that’s what’s happening in the Afghanistan and Iraq fronts… the war is getting over sooner…
How about using the money to foment peace and not war and seeing what happens? How about stop spending on ammo and start spending on technologies that free the US from needing to give this guys attention?
I don’t know, but look from here in Brazil, this seems like a better approach.
#11 “All this wrangling over money will be moot when what money we do have will be worthless.”
Agreed
You do have to wonder (after the government has spent untold hundreds of $billions – $trillions? – in the past year or so) what difference will this make?
gee, looks like if we stopped going 9000 miles away and invading countries of little to no threat to us, then these or any other planes aren’t even needed–at all. Further, what would be the air superiority threat from foreign countries if “we” stopped selling them air superiority weapons to begin with.
Any feeling here for the morass the military/industrial complex has made for us?
No feeling at all??????
S – U – C – K – E – R – S
aka dipshit average American Voters, gung ho for stupid and God wrapped in a flag with a corn dog.
I don’t know why you are all so keen for us to spend money on these planes. They are not needed at the moment, and are a waste compared to other things the money could be spent on.
Firstly, there is no immediate threat in the world to maintain such a massive defensive force. We are spending at cold war rates. There is no other country who are even a threat, and those that are are so small compared to the USA, that its like using a sledge hammer to break a walnut.
Secondly, those countries that are any sort of threat are not enemies who use conventional weapons like planes, and tanks and giant army battalions etc etc. They are smaller guerilla fighters. This mindset of having maximum firepower is not necessary anymore. Its because of this we find ourself launching cruise missiles worth $100,000 each into Iraq to blow up some little mud huts worth a few hundred bucks.
History also shows, that if there does become an immediate threat, the country is pretty good at rapidly building machines of war within a very short time. Look at the sudden increase in war production when the USA joined WW2. It only took about 6 months and they were able to match the other big players, and helped to win it. Why spend all this money on these planes that are just gonna sit there doing nothing too substantial until they too become too old to use.
Until there is any immediate threat in the world, I say scrap them. The wars we are fighting at the moment are clearly not going well, despite vastly superior firepower. Focus needs to be put onto intelligence, rather than more expensive planes and stuff. Its the same with Vietnam. We already overshadow the next biggest military force by several times. Is it really necessary to spend even MORE on it? I don’t think so. It’s fine as it is.
Do we honestly have any enemys these days? Other than defenseless arab nations who greedily hold OUR oil underneath their lands?
The F-22 was just another cold war circle jerk project and should have been killed.
Reagan resuscitated the horrid B-1 bomber and now we have a bunch of substandard B-1’s which do 2nd duty behind the superior B-52.
We need a pragmatic eye when we purchase military hardware. Its not a big penis contest, its military procurement.
“We aren’t fighting any wars, we never do, no one threatens us” — That’s because we overspend on our military budget. Changing that changes the outcome. I liken this to a sports player getting cocky, and deciding he doesn’t HAVE to train, right? What happens to that cocky athlete?
I’d rather throw money at defense and have our enemies think twice. I doubt anyone would think about cost if these planes actually diverted war.
In this case, it pays to insure the country, you do it with your family obviously.
It’s the spearhead of our attack, and enables the rest of our forces to move with less engagement. Removing the spear head makes our men & women of the armed forces a lot more vulnerable to attack. In an offensive scenario, it benefits us in that way. Of course, there’s also less change of an offensive scenario because it exists.
Times are tough. Military can settle for a sled and a box of crayons until things get better. Maybe next year we can buy them an F22
#2,#8
The last full scale wars USA was/is, were not “necessary”, neither to get the job done, nor as a showoff exercise…
In fact, the more US ups the ante, the more the “traditional” cold war foes get nervous…and, after all, who’s gonna be a threat to US anyway? Russia? China? yeah… and loose the best market in the world to sell their goods… really clever…
What a flock of 19th Century gits. I’m surprised you aren’t screaming for another battleship or two to counter the Taliban threat to the Hudson River.
Air superiority? Har! You already have Hot Air Superiority.
It is obvious people like #2 have no clue what the F-22 was built for. Its a plane without much use and a lot of maybes down the road. The wars we are fighting today have little use for an air superiority fighter. The planes will mostly sit around and be used for training. Besides it too expensive to possibly lose one.
The F-35 is the plane that will be our day to day ground attack fighter.
Put the money into defense where we need it, not in big show piece programs just to help local politicians.
I’m pretty sure we haven’t use the F-22’s or any similar fighter jet in the previous wars and won’t be able to anytime soon?
#20
That’s exactly my point. Unless we go to war with China or Russia in the near future the F-22 is a waste of money.
If we’re going to build anything we should build F-35’s. Its a multirole strike fighter that we can actually be put to use in smaller scale conflicts while still being useful if a full-scale war ever did break out.
All said, I would really like to see a remake of “Top Gun”. Like, Tom Cruise, shooting down the entire Al Qaeda Airforce in an F-22. Throw in Iron Man, too.
#24 — I agree. Putting money into the F-35s and missiles would be more bang for the buck right now.
Even putting more money into UAVs would be better.
it’s only dollars
Well, the F22 is the best idea to compete with the Rafale which is going to be recognize on the market. This is also an economic situation to remain first fighter seller against the bloody French, look at what they managed to do with Airbus…
Joint Strike Fighter, designed for the all in one airframe. That was the problem. If no one else noticed Europe makes some reasonable priced good fighter bombers. Now we have a strategic asset that can’t fly in the rain because it has to be repainted. Congressional Districts buy weapon programs, not the Pentagon.
#29. “Now we have a strategic asset that can’t fly in the rain because it has to be repainted”, and is already obsolete. Introducing, the Saab Gripen NG.
Gripen – http://bit.ly/3YDNf