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Senate votes to kill F-22

The Senate delivered a big victory to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday with a 58-40 vote to terminate production of the F-22 fighter.

The F-22 is one of several expensive weapons systems the Obama administration has sought to cancel or delay as part of its move to reshape the military, but the Senate had added seven more fighters to its version of the 2010 defense authorization bill, prompting Obama to issue a threat that he would veto any bill that includes additional aircraft.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said the debate on the F-22 is more than a fight about one aircraft, but rather a vote over whether Congress can ever terminate anything. “If not now, when? When will we end production of a weapons system?” Levin asked. “We must now do the sensible thing.”

Levin was fighting, in part, because the $1.75 billion to pay for seven F-22 Raptors came from cuts in other defense programs, including military and civilian personnel accounts, operations and maintenance funds, and an assumption — which Levin said was wishful thinking — that there would be large savings in 2010 from reforming the defense acquisition system.

The chief proponent of continuing to buy F-22s, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said the cuts to pay for the F-22 were all from non-critical areas and taken from accounts that had been raided in the past to pay for other additions to the defense budget.

Chambliss also said the vote is very important for the future of the Air Force and morale of airmen. “The worst thing we can do is discourage them,” he said, saying Air Force members who have contacted him said the vote on the F-22 was a symbol of whether this was the Air Force to which they wanted to belong.

This is far from final word on the F-22. The House Appropriations Committee is going to take up its version of the 2010 defense funding bill Wednesday that includes $369 million for advance procurement of F-22s. These leaves open the possibility of buying more aircraft if the Quadrennial Defense Review completed later this year supports the idea.