Guess with a war running at 5 billion a month the money has to start being saved somewhere.
...-Gixer
War costs could scuttle new fighter, McCain says
The need to add troops in Iraq means the U.S. can't afford the F/A-22, the senator argued.
By Jim Wolf
Reuters
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon may have to scrap its premier fighter jet program to help pay for the war in Iraq, Sen. John McCain, an influential member of the Armed Services Committee, said yesterday.
"It's obvious that we're paying a heavy price, I think, for not having had enough troops there from the beginning," the Arizona Republican said on NBC's Meet the Press.
McCain said both the Army and the Marine Corps must be expanded overall, a position at odds with that of President Bush's administration. The United States has 129,000 troops in Iraq, a number McCain said must rise.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R., Ind.) joined McCain in calling for more troops.
"It's clear that we're stretched, and the Iraqi security forces are not prepared yet to fight and to turn back insurgents," Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News Sunday.
McCain said that as part of a broad overhaul of U.S. priorities, the Pentagon may have to scrap the $71 billion Air Force program to buy F/A-22 air-to-air fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
"We may have to cancel this airplane that's going to cost between $250 million and $300 million a copy," McCain said.
"We've got to change the way we do business and put the priority where it belongs," McCain said. "And that is making sure that we succeed in Iraq."
Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said the United States needed more specially trained forces in Iraq.
"People that are in there have to know what the heck we're doing," Roberts said on the CBS program Face the Nation. "If we do have those troops, yes, let's send them."
The Air Force hopes to buy at least 277 F/A-22 fighters, which it describes as key to dominating the skies in future combat.
It is about to enter operational testing en route to replacing the F-15C.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has resisted calls for any lasting increase in the U.S. occupation force in Iraq and argued against permanently boosting the size of U.S. armed forces unless such action is sought by military commanders themselves.
