16.07.2009, 21:02
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/07/16/murtha-adds-money-for-12-more-f-22s/">http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/07/16/murth ... ore-f-22s/</a><!-- m -->
Zitat:Murtha Raises Gates 12 F-22s
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will not at all be pleased with the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense mark-up of the 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill. The $636.3 billion mark is $3.8 billion less than the amount requested by the Obama administration; but it’s what powerful subcommittee chairman Rep. John Murtha added that will truly gall.
Murtha added $369 million for advanced procurement of 12 more F-22 Raptors, a program the administration wants to kill; added $485 million to “operationalize” 5 VH-71 Presidential Helicopters, another program the administration wants to end; $560 million more to continue development of a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter; and $674 million was added to buy 3 additional C-17 lifters.
Murtha said he was mindful of Obama’s threat to veto the defense bill if more money was added to buy more F-22s but he believes some kind of agreement can be worked out and that it won’t come to a veto. At least he wants the administration to consider the advanced funding, which Murtha said he just added yesterday, to maintain a production line that can turn out spare parts or replacement aircraft. He believes “in my heart” Gates will eventually prevail, but he at least wants the administration to consider lawmakers concerns and vowed to work with the White House. Murtha said he believes the decision to stop the F-22 buy at 187 aircraft did not come from Gates, rather it came from the White House.
The Air Force’s higher number for F-22s was based on fighting a two front war, the 2 Major Combat Operations planning construct that is being jettisoned in the QDR strategic review. Murtha said lawmakers would go with the higher figure until the strategy is officially changed. On the presidential helicopter, Murtha said he expected the Obama administration would “see the wisdom” of getting something out of the money already spent on the program.
Colin Clark spoke with Rep. Norm Dicks at an Aerospace Industries Association Lunch after the markup and Dicks conceded that F-22 supporters faced a “very uphill battle. There’s no way we’d have the votes to override a veto. If the president is firm on the veto we’ll have to take that into account” as the bill moves to the House floor or to conference, when House and Senate lawmakers hammer out the final bill. President Obama has made the administration’s position on the F-22 abundantly clear, most recently in yesterday’s Statement of Administration Policy. If you read the SAP’s F-22 language, there is no waffling: “As the President wrote in his letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 13, if the final bill presented to him contains this provision, the President will veto it.” And that sentence is underlined, lest anyone think it just political boilerplate.....