IMPASSIONED APPEALS BY LEADING DEMOCRATS OPENS CRITICAL NEW STAGE IN FIGHT TO BUILD MORE B-2S

(Washington, D.C.) As the Senate-House
conference committee on the FY1995
Defense authorization bill got underway,
several influential Democratic
congressional leaders — Senators
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and James
Exon of Nebraska and Representative
Norm Dicks of Washington
— delivered impassioned appeals
concerning an item in sharp contention
between the two chambers: a
Senate add-on of $150 million needed to
preserve the option to build additional
B-2 “Stealth” bombers.
The three legislators addressed a Capitol
Hill conference sponsored by the
Washington Strategy Seminar and involving
a large array of present and former
senior civilian and military
policy-makers.

Particularly noteworthy were the
remarks of the distinguished chairman of
the Senate Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee, Sen. Inouye. Highlights of
his statement included the following
points:

• “:…A struggle…will be
  played out over the next several
  weeks — a struggle which
  will have a profound impact on
  our future and, if history is to
  be our guide, on the future of
  the world. It is not, I
  submit, the future of U.S. air
  power alone which is at
  stake.”
• “We do not have a lot of
  time for far-ranging discussions
  today. So, I wish to focus my
  remarks on what I regard as the
  critical element in the future of
  our air power. Please do not
  misconstrue my position. I
  believe the F-22 fighter and the
  C-17 are important to the future
  of our nation’s air power. I
  believe the same is true of the
  F-18 E/F program and, indeed, the
  CVN-76 carrier. These are all
  important to the future of air
  power, but these programs are not
  presently in danger.”
• “Unfortunately, most
  regrettably, the same cannot be
  said about our future bomber
  force structure. It is
  in danger. I opposed the
  amendment offered by Senator
  Levin. That amendment would have
  deleted $150 million, which the
  bill authorizes for the express
  purpose of maintaining the tools
  and facilities on the last
  American bomber production line.
  Had the amendment been adopted, a
  key element of the U.S.
  industrial base for the
  production of modern bomber
  aircraft would have been
  irretrievably lost.”
• “Logic is on our side. We
  must make certain that this issue
  is decided through logical
  analysis through an objective
  review of the facts and not the
  impulses of uninformed public
  opinion or a shortsighted focus
  on present costs.”
• “Secretary of Defense Perry
  testified to the [Senate] Defense
  [Appropriations] Subcommittee
  earlier this year on the bomber
  industrial base. He told.us,
  quite frankly, that his budget
  did not address this need. He
  said :

‘We don’t have anything in
our program to sustain a
bomber industrial base. That
is a weakness of this program
that were presenting to you,
and you may rightly
challenge and criticize..That
assumption.’

‘The most logical
way of maintaining a bomber
industrial base is to
continue to build more B-2s.
That’s not only because that
is the best, the most
cost-effective bomber we can
describe to you right now,
but because we could
make a very good use of the
extra B-2s if we had them.’

• “I am a strong B-2 supporter
  and my colleagues know that. I
  recognize that the B-2 is the
  best bomber ever produced and, though
  it is expensive, I believe we
  should purchase more. I am not
  blind to the costs, quite the
  contrary, I am looking very
  closely at the costs — the costs
  of not continuing the B-2
  bomber.”
• “The B-2 bomber is a marvel
  of American technology. It has
  the capability to take off from
  bases in the U.S. and fly
  anywhere in the world, penetrate
  virtually any airspace, deliver a
  devastating blow and return to
  the U.S. without stopping. In
  this era, when the U.S. is
  deploying fewer troops overseas
  at fewer locations, the global
  reach of the B-2 is essential
  to deterrence and to war
  fighting.”
• “I say the B-2 is essential.
  No other weapon can do the job.
  With mid-air refueling, the B-lB
  and B-52 can fly long ranges, but
  they cannot penetrate heavily
  defended airspace. Even the F-117
  does not have the capability of
  the B-2 in that arena.”
• “Moreover…we should bear
  in mind that the American public
  is increasingly reluctant to
  support U.S. interests abroad, if
  that means intervention and the
  possible loss of American life.
  It is self-evident that the best
  way to protect those who must go
  into harm’s way is to provide
  them the best equipment to reduce
  casualties and deaths.”
• “I do not make my argument
  on costs alone. The
  Bottom-Up Review concluded that
  100 bombers are required to
  handle one [Major Regional
  Conflict]. It also assumed a
  force structure of 184 bombers.
  However, the Air Force plans to
  retain only 107 total bombers in
  its inventory, not more than 80
  of which are to be ready for
  combat. Exactly
  how this force structure will
  fulfill the requirements for
  fighting two nearly simultaneous
  major regional contingencies has
  not been answered to my
  satisfaction by any DoD official.

Sen. Inouye’s comments — and
complementary statements made by Sen.
Exon, the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee’s Strategic Forces and
Nuclear Deterrence Subcommittee, and Rep.
Dicks, a senior member of the House
Appropriations Defense Subcommittee —
closely track with the findings of a
High-Level Roundtable Discussion recently
sponsored by the Center for Security
Policy. ⁽¹⁾
Participants in the Center’s roundtable
included such prominent Republican
national security figures as former
Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger, former Secretary of
the Navy and Defense Department
Comptroller Sean O’Keefe
and former Under Secretaries of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz and Donald
Hicks.

The Center is enormously encouraged by
the evidence of an emerging
bipartisan consensus behind preserving
the option for the procurement of more
than 20 B-2 bombers. The
leadership being shown by the foregoing
defense-minded Democratic and Republican
leaders — together with the chairman of
the Senate Armed Services Committee and
the House Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee, Sen. Sam Nunn
and Rep. John Murtha,
respectively — argue strongly for
the Clinton Administration to cease its
opposition to this prudent initiative.
Unfortunately, according to the trade
publication Aerospace Daily, as
recently as yesterday, the Defense
Department has reaffirmed its opposition
in a “heartburn letter” sent to
the Senate-House conferees:

“It is not clear how the
Senate proposal [concerning the B-2]
can be executed in light of the
legislative cap imposed on the
program. Without a change in
legislation, the Department would
likely be precluded from spending
these funds and they would eventually
expire.”

The Center for Security Policy
understands that this statement is not
factually correct, based upon the
construction of the Senate’s legislative
language. Even if it were, however, any
changes necessary could be easily
accommodated by the conference committee.
The Center urges the
Administration to support this and
any other steps necessary to
maintain the B-2 production line pending
further decisions and debate on
proceeding with further procurement of
these extraordinary military assets.

– 30 –

1. See the
Center’s press release entitled, The
Case for Continued Production of the B-2
Bomber: Center Roundtable Shows Why U.S.
Can’t Afford to Stop Now, ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-P_64″>No. 94-P 64, 24
June 1994) and its href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-P_64at1″>attachment.