http://www.dsti.net/News/52903.htm
美國眾多國會議員反對終止採購F-22
[據美國《防務新聞》2009年4月13日報導] 當美國國防部欲終止部分耗資巨大的武器研發專案的計畫送達國會時，國會反應是迅速而且基本都是否定的。
美國國防部長Robert Gates被指責欲“摘掉軍隊的內臟、破壞導彈防禦和解除美國的武裝”。
絕大多數立法者的第一本能在於保護能在他們選區提供工作的專案。一些人只是不能容忍削減任何重大武器專案的想法。
一位前白宮撥款委員會的民主黨參謀長表示，為了獲勝，Gates“將不得不堅持他所提出的那些削減的優點”。“而在絕大多數場合下，我懷疑他會贏的。我認為絕大部分立法者對Gates想投錢在什麼地方是支持的，所以他們不得不同意削減以得到那些開銷。”
武器控制和防擴散中心的Christopher Hellman表示，政府將贏一些輸一些。比如，結束F-22隱身戰鬥機項目“將是真正成問題的。但是造船那事兒已經定論了”。
一位白宮官員稱，今年初，幾乎240名白宮官員和約40名參議員給Obam發信要求繼續F-22的建造計畫。
Hellman 表示，Gates要求退役250架空軍最老的噴氣戰鬥機的要求將在國會遇到強硬的阻力。這些飛機主要是國民警衛隊和空軍預備役在飛，于立法者們有堅實的政治影響。五角大樓已經“嘗試了十年，而每年國會都告訴他們沒戲”。
康涅狄格州的全部國會代表團-6名民主黨人和自由黨人-寫信給Obama警告稱他們將在“全額資助額外的F-22飛機採購上”不遺餘力。他們說結束該專案將使該州失去2000個工作。
佐治亞州參議員Saxby Chambliss在大部分工作時間內都在為佐治亞州生產的F-22辯護。“這場鬥爭沒有結束。我將會推翻部長的建議。”
奧克拉荷馬州參議員James Inhofe毫無疑問是厭惡那些項目削減的，他說“這將解除美國的武裝”。(中國航空工業發展研究中心 劉亞威)
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4035335
Can Gates Get His Way?
Framing Is Crucial to 2010 DoD Budget Plan
By william matthews
Published: 13 April 2009
When the plan to halt production of some of the Pentagon's costliest weapons reached Capitol Hill, the reaction was swift and mostly negative.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who proposes to increase the 2010 base defense budget to $534 billion - $10 billion more than planned under Bush - was accused of gutting the military, undermining missile defense and disarming America.
"It was interesting to see some of the reactions," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii. "They pretty much reflect the interests of the individual senators and representatives doing the reacting."
The first instinct for most lawmakers was to defend programs that provide jobs in their districts. Some simply can't abide the idea of cutting any major weapons.
But in the end, Congress probably will agree to most of what Gates wants, Abercrombie said.
Chances are "probably very high that [the Gates plan] will pass because there's no choice - unless you want to borrow more money and explode the Pentagon budget even higher," he said.
To pay for things that the military needs now, such as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles and medical care for severely wounded veterans, the Pentagon can't keep pumping money into programs such as the Airborne Laser and the Future Combat Systems, Abercrombie said. Both are vastly over budget, behind schedule and technologically dubious.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also endorsed Gates' plan.
"It has long been necessary to shift spending away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow," said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Even opponents of the plan outside the Pentagon and Congress say it stands a good chance of being accepted largely intact by the House and Senate.
"What Gates did, which in a sense was brilliant, was he took a scattershot approach," said James Carafano, a defense scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "It impacts a lot of people" but in positive as well as negative ways.
Companies that lose in one program often gain in another, he said. And while workers in one part of the country would lose jobs, another region gains them.
"Clearly, it's a divide-and-conquer strategy," Carafano said. The plan itself is "just awful. There is no strategic rationale behind these cuts." But in the end, "they will probably get much of what they want."
To prevail, Gates "will have to argue the merits" of the cuts he proposes, said Scott Lilly of the liberal Center for American Progress, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. "And in most instances, I suspect he will win. I think most lawmakers support the places Gates wants to put the money, so they will have to agree to the cuts in order to get that spending."
The administration is going to win some and lose some, said Christopher Hellman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Ending the F-22 stealth fighter program, for example, "is going to be really problematic. But the shipbuilding stuff is already a done deal."
Earlier this year, almost 240 members of the House and 40-some members of the Senate sent a letter to Obama asking him to continue building the F-22, a House staffer said.
Gates' call for retiring 250 of the Air Force's oldest fighter jets will meet stiff resistance in Congress, Hellman said. The planes are flown mainly by the National Guard and Air Force Reserve, which have substantial political clout with lawmakers. The Pentagon has "been trying to do that for a decade, and every year Congress has told them that they can't," he said.
And there are also programs that have a diehard constituency in Congress.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., decried Gates' plan to cut spending on missile defense and make the Airborne Laser strictly a research program. Lieberman called the plane "really important."
"If there ever was a program that needs a wooden stake hammered through its heart, it's the Airborne Laser," Hellman said. Echoing Gates, he said, "It's over budget, it doesn't work and it has a dubious mission."
Other fights are brewing.
Connecticut's entire congressional delegation - six Democrats and Lieberman - wrote to Obama warning that they will work hard to "fully fund the purchase of additional F-22 aircraft." They said ending the program would eliminate 2,000 jobs in Connecticut.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who has spent much of his Senate career defending the F-22, which is built in Georgia, vowed, "this fight is not finished. I will work to overturn the secretary's recommendation."
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., left no doubt that he loathes the proposed program cuts, which he said "will disarm America."
Oklahoma stands to lose if the Army's Future Combat Systems program is scaled back as Gates wants. The Non-Line of Sight Cannon is among the program elements that Gates wants to kill. It was to be built by BAE Systems at a plant in Elgin, Okla.
"Sadly, the modernization of our Army is a can that was kicked down the road today, yet again," Inhofe said.
Yet Gates made it clear that he wants to continue modernizing the Army - just not with expensive FCS vehicles that would be vulnerable in irregular warfare. Several analysts said it is likely the Army could end up fielding more modernized vehicles than it would have under FCS.
For Industry, Continued Growth
As Washington began dissecting Gates' proposed program changes, forecasts of gloom and doom for the defense sector were replaced by a feeling that there were really just a few surprises.
Defense analysts in Washington and on Wall Street agree there are plenty of signs that the outlook for continued growth, though slower than the Bush years, remains strong.
"Program decisions described yesterday were mostly positive for the large defense primes," though the proposals hit Boeing hard, Bernstein Research analysts wrote in an April 7 paper. Bernstein analysts said they expect Congress will approve most of Gates' plan, and the firm sees his push for tools to fight irregular warfare as a driver for a defense budget increase in 2011.
Far from all of the roughly 40 moves were cuts. Larry Korb, a defense analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington, called worries that Gates was gutting the weapons portfolio "much ado about nothing."
For example, Gates capped the DDG 1000 program at three ships. But that may well have added one ship to the program, which Navy leaders were ready to abandon after two hulls. Meanwhile, the secretary extended the Navy's DDG 51 destroyer program.
The secretary delayed the Navy's CG-X cruiser initiative "to revisit both the requirements and acquisition strategy," but passed up the chance to terminate it altogether.
"We will not pursue a development program for a follow-on Air Force bomber until we have a better understanding of the need, the requirement and the technology," he said.
Longtime Pentagon watchers see political calculations in some of the proposals. Strong congressional support means that lawmakers will inflate the defense budget to buy more of their favorite weapons.
"We expect Congress to add funding for F-22s and C-17s, and there will likely be some pushback to the move to 10 carrier groups," the Bernstein note said. "We could easily see the addition of C-17s, Stryker vehicles, and even a move to split the tanker buy. Overall we see the Gates decisions as much less controversial than suggested by many press reports prior to the secretary's statement."
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