Gates expected to slice orders for F-35 as part of spending cuts
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Bob Cox
01/05/2011
Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to cut orders for the F-35 joint strike fighter over the next three to five years as part of broader plan to reduce Pentagon spending by $100 billion, analysts say.
Gates will brief Congress today on a five-year spending plan for the Defense Department, including yet another restructuring of the F-35 program to compensate for repeated delays in development and testing.
Defense analysts said few details of Gates' intentions have surfaced, but he is widely expected to announce cancellation of the Marines' $13 billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, another weapons program plagued by years of delays and rising costs. Analysts said they also expect one or more other big-ticket weapons programs to be targeted as part of the 2012 budget proposal that President Barack Obama will send to Congress next month.
But the Pentagon will likely just scale back the number of F-35s it had previously planned to order from Lockheed Martin over the next few years to pay for continued development and testing, they say.
The Pentagon's commitment to the F-35 hasn't lessened, but Gates has to find a way to pay for the delays and higher costs, said Loren Thompson, consultant to defense contractors and chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute think tank.
"The most likely outcome is a cut in the rate of purchases," Thompson said.
"The problem with the F-35 is it is a program that can't go away. All the services are wedded to this," said Chris Hellman, policy analyst with the National Priorities Project, a policy group that advocates defense cuts to help trim deficits.
The Pentagon had planned to buy 319 jets between 2012 and 2015 in an aggressive production increase aimed to hold down costs. One analyst speculated that number could be cut by at least 50 planes.
The effect on Lockheed's operations in Fort Worth, where the planes are being built, could be greater since more than 200 foreign orders were expected during the same period, and those have not yet begun to materialize due to delays and cost increases. About 7,000 people are working on the F-35 program at Lockheed, as well as thousands more at subcontractors in the U.S. and several foreign countries.
Lockheed spokesman John Kent said the company would not have any comment until Gates has announced his plans.
Until recently there had been speculation that Gates might decide to kill the F-35B, the complex short-takeoff-vertical-landing version for the Marines. It has had problems with component reliability, and testing is behind schedule.
Instead, most observers say, Gates agreed with the Marines to push back the timetable for the F-35B to allow fixes and adequate time for testing. But the delays add to the already rising cost of the aircraft.
Just a year ago, Gates restructured the F-35 program and committed additional funding to cover cost increases. He also fired the Marine general running the program and ordered an extensive review to determine what further problems were lurking.
That "technical baseline review," by new F-35 executive Vice Adm. David Venlet, has been used by Defense Department officials to fashion the new program schedule and budget. The F-35 is the largest defense program ever, and the Pentagon estimated a year ago that total costs would top $382 billion for development and acquisition of more than 2,400 jets.
Analysts say Gates is taking bold steps to try to spare the Pentagon from even deeper budget cuts, as newly elected Tea Party activists pledge that no government program should go unexamined.
The Pentagon was told by the White House to whittle down its long-range budget by as much as $150 billion, Thompson said, but Gates argued that only about $80 billion was practical. Still, the Obama administration directed the Defense Department to create a spending plan for 2012 that doesn't exceed $554 billion, instead of the $566 billion requested. The figure does not include war spending.
"Gates has done a good job so far in protecting the budget," Thompson said. "But the deficit is so huge and the other claims on the budget so big that he is starting to lose ground."
This report includes material from The Associated Press.
