Bowing to Veto Threat, Senate Blocks Money for Warplanes
July 22, 2009
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 58-40 on Tuesday to strip $1.75 billion for seven more F-22 fighters from a military spending bill, handing President Obama a crucial victory in his efforts to reshape the military’s priorities.
The victory came after the president had placed his political capital on the line by repeatedly threatening to veto the $679.8 billion spending bill if it included any money for the planes.
The F-22, the world’s most advanced fighter, had become a flashpoint in a larger battle over the administration’s push to shift more of the Pentagon’s resources from conventional warfare to fighting insurgencies.
The plane’s supporters, who ranged from hawkish Republicans to Democrats close to organized labor, also voiced concern over the possible loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs at a time when the economy is in turmoil.
Senate aides said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, pushed hard to rally support for the president through phone calls to crucial senators.
The aides added that some Democrats who might have voted for more of the planes stuck with the president out of concern that a loss on the F-22 could have hurt him politically in the tougher fight over health-care reform.
Mr. Obama also received some crucial support on the F-22 vote from his Republican rival in last year’s presidential election, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Senator McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, sponsored the amendment to strip the money for the F-22 out of the bill.
Despite Mr. Obama’s veto threat, that committee voted 13-11 on June 25 to shift the $1.75 billion from other parts of the Pentagon’s budget for 2010 to add the seven planes to the 187 that have already been built or ordered.
Three Democrats, including long-time Senate leaders like Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, joined most the panel’s Republicans in approving the extra money.
But Senator Levin and Senator McCain both opposed the measure then and promised to take the fight to the Senate floor, where Senator Levin said on Tuesday that 187 was “all that we need to buy, that is all that we can afford to buy, and that is all that we should buy.”
In Tuesday’s vote on the Senate floor, Senator Byrd continued to support the plane, and Senator Kennedy, who is suffering from cancer, was absent.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had also voiced support for plane, voted Tuesday against additional financing on Tuesday. But other prominent Democrats like Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both of California, voted to preserve the financing. Connecticut and California both have a substantial numbers of jobs invested in the planes.
The House has voted to keep the plane alive — by providing $369 million to buy advanced parts for 12 more F-22s. Ultimately, a conference committee will decide the next step.
Still, military analysts said that the supporters of the plane — led by Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, where the final assembly of the planes is done — had come much closer to saving the F-22 than most experts had expected when Mr. Gates announced plans in April to cancel it and other high-profile weapons systems.
Critics have long portrayed the F-22 a Cold War relic. The plane was designed in the late 1980s, when the Air Force envisioned buying up to 750 of the planes to dominate dogfights with Soviet jets.
The F-22 can perform tactical operations at higher altitudes than other fighters, and it can cruise at supersonic speeds without using telltale afterburners. With a stealthy skin that scatters radar detection signals, it was also meant to sneak in and destroy enemy surface-to-air missile defenses, clearing the way for bombers and other planes to follow.
But the F-22 has never been used in war, and in recent years, the Pentagon’s focus had shifted to the fights against Islamic insurgents. And the Bush administration also tried to halt its production.
Proponents say more of the planes are needed as insurance for possible wars with countries like China and Iran.
They also would like to keep the production lines open to see if allies like Japan want to buy the plane, though that would require overturning a law banning its export.
The jobs issue became another rallying cry as the economy deteriorated and the Obama administration pushed through huge stimulus plans to save other types of jobs.
Lockheed Martin has estimated that work on the plane provides 25,000 jobs and indirectly supports up to 70,000 others.
But the Pentagon is now in the process of shifting its focus away from preparing for two major wars at the same time. Instead, Mr. Gates wants the military to prepare for a broader mix of possibilities, like one conventional war and one long-running battle against insurgents.
And under that plan, top Air Force leaders have agreed that they could make do with the 187 F-22s already built or ordered, instead of the 381 that the service had still sought a few months ago.
Besides calling lawmakers to seek their votes, Mr. Gates gave an impassioned speech in Chicago last week, saying “If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right?”
Mr. Gates also argued that the F-22 was a “niche, silver-bullet solution” for only a few potential situations. He said the Pentagon needs to shift to a new fighter, the F-35, and accelerate its testing and production.
The Pentagon plans to build 2,400 F-35s, which will also be used by the Navy and the Marines and is designed to attack ground targets. Military officials have said that by 2020, they should have almost 1,100 F-35s and F-22s, while China will still not have any equivalent fighters.
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