Ga. senator says support exists for more F-22s - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Ga. senator says support exists for more F-22s

Congressional proponents of more F-22 fighters will aim to put extra money for the stealthy jets in the 2010 U.S. defense appropriations bill, a key senator says.

“The appropriations process is the key right now. ... That is primarily what we’re going to focus on,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said Wednesday. Chambliss is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We might not even need the authorization” bill to spend more money on Raptors, he said.

Chambliss said after a speech at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute that he has spoken with congressional leaders about buying more Raptors with 2010 appropriations.

Asked whether those leaders had given him any guarantees, Chambliss said: “The good news is we have people in leadership on both sides that realize 187 [jets] is not enough.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced April 6 that the Obama administration would hold to the Bush administration decision to halt F-22 production. The Pentagon has money for 183 of the Lockheed Martin-made jets; lawmakers are expected to provide four more in pending war-funding legislation.

But some in Congress — especially those, like Chambliss, whose districts make F-22s and their parts — say a 187-plane fleet would hamstring future presidents. Chambliss said the currently planned Raptor fleet would only be available in one region at a time. That would limit “a future president’s options,” he told an AEI audience.

Chambliss said the decision to cap the fleet “is not a one-year or two-year decision; it’s a 30-year decision.”

Gates has countered that only 187 are needed, citing internal Pentagon analysis who say peer militaries, like China and Russia, will not be able to field a comparable fifth-generation fighter until the 2020s. When coupled with the Raptor’s cost, Gates has said he is willing to take a bit of near-term risk, since all indications are any fighter that could take on the F-22 is decades away.

F-22 proponents also have touted its ability to take out enemy surface-to-air missile systems. Gates has answered that, too, telling Chambliss during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week that the military has plenty of other aerial systems that can target SAM sites.

The secretary announced his decision to cap the Raptor fleet on the same day he announced proposed changes to 49 other major weapons.