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Japan defense chief asks for secret F-22 data

Japan’s defense minister, Fumio Kyuma, has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates for top-secret technical data about the Pentagon’s prized F-22A Raptor, which Tokyo would like to buy.

“We have heard the capability [of the F-22A] is quite high,” Kyuma said Wednesday in Washington. “But without more concrete information disclosed, we won’t be able to know” about a number of technical and performance specifications.

Japanese officials have so far been unable to acquire in-depth information about the so-called fifth-generation fighter jet because of a U.S. law — the so-called Obey amendment — that bans sales of the platform.

“Because of U.S. laws, we cannot know the specific capabilities of the F-22,” Kyuma said.

The Obey amendment, tacked onto the 1998 Defense Appropriations Act by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., prohibits F-22A exports. Last year, conferees working on a final defense spending bill turned back a House-approved move to nix the provision.

Kyuma said he “raised the issue” of a “look inside” the Raptor during his meeting with Gates.

“When someone else is marketing something ... you cannot just take their word for it,” he said. Instead, Japanese officials would rather “see for ourselves and make [our] own decision.”

Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Patrick Ryder declined to discuss the Gates-Kumya meeting, but did say, “I can tell you that, by law, the F/A-22 is not available for international sale. There has been specific legislation to that effect since 1997.”

Ryder cited the fiscal 2007 defense appropriations act, which says, “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to approve or license the sale of the F-22A advanced tactical fighter to any foreign government.”

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) has four kinds of fighters: F-15s, F-2s, F-1s, and F-4s, the latter introduced in 1973 and slated for retirement in the next decade.

Senior Japanese defense officials have for some time made public their interest in buying the F-22A. But one DoD source recently said the Pentagon is unlikely to clear the F-22A for export, and is pushing Tokyo to consider Lockheed’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Other candidates include more F-15s, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, Eurofighter’s Typhoon and Dassault’s Rafale.

Japan wants to purchase “at least a 4.5-generation aircraft,” Kyuma said. The Raptor and JSF are often referred to as fifth-generation fighters by U.S. defense and industry officials.

A Japanese purchase of F-22s would bolster orders of the stealthy jet for Lockheed, which has seen the Air Force scale its planned purchase from 381 fighters to just over 180 — though Air Force officials are hinting that they will seek a return to the original plan.

Selling some Raptors to Japan is intriguing to some in the U.S. defense community, industry officials and analysts have said. That’s largely because China and an increasingly rigid regime in Moscow are considered by strategic military and political thinkers as the lone nations that could present a true air-to-air threat to the U.S. military and its allies.

If Japan were allowed to purchase Raptors, it would mean an extra squadron or two of the top-of-the-line fighters permanently based in the Asian theater, military analysts have pointed out.

Selling the Raptor to Japan would require elimination of the Obey amendment, as well as approval of top brass at the Defense and State departments, and in Congress.

Before such a transaction could go down, a collective change of mind from the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill would be necessary. Each entity has long been opposed to exporting the Raptor — even to Washington’s closest allies — because many worry the plane’s most-advanced, super-secret systems could end up in the hands of potential future foes such as China.

That Asian giant is viewed by some military scholars and analysts as the one nation that could legitimately mount a conventional war against American forces.

Air Force and Pentagon officials, as well as top analysts, have said that before Washington would agree to sell the fighter to Japan or any ally, that government would have to adopt strict provisions to keep F-22A technologies from being sold to other nations.

Industry officials and analysts have also said the United States may seek to offer any serious Raptor suitor a slightly “watered-down” version of the plane, fitted with fewer of the highly advanced systems slated for the American model.