‘READ OUR LIPS’: MESSAGE TO SENATE APPROPRIATORS — WE NEED MORE MODERN BOMBERS, NOT LESS

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday, the
Senate Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee took one step forward and
two big steps back on the long march
toward assuring the future viability of
the U.S. manned bomber force. The
forward progress came when the
Subcommittee — consistent with the
strong desires of its chairman, Sen.
Daniel Inouye (D-HI) ⁽¹⁾
— approved $150 million to preserve
through FY1995 the industrial base
required to build additional B-2 aircraft.
This action represents an essential
initiative aimed at correcting political
decisions taken in 1992 that prematurely
truncated production of the world’s only
long-range “stealth” bombers.⁽²⁾

Unfortunately, the
Subcommittee simultaneously adopted
language that is very counterproductive:
It stipulated that funds appropriated to
modify the B-1B bomber — roughly $275
million in procurement and research and
development accounts — be
“fenced” pending the completion
of a cost and operational effectiveness
(COEA) report. These upgrades
are intended to give the B-1 a
conventional precision guided munitions
(PGM) capability and enhanced electronic
countermeasure (ECM) capabilities. In
short, they are essential to
maximizing the return on the Nation’s
considerable investment in the B-1.

Were the Subcommittee’s action to be
approved by the full Appropriations
Committee when it considers the FY95
Defense appropriations bill tomorrow and
become law, it would have a gravely
deleterious effect on the B-1 fleet —
and on the flexibility and power
projection capability of the U.S. manned
bomber force. It is generally
acknowledged that the most urgent
priority for that force is to install
precise conventional weapons capabilities
on all three aircraft in the inventory.
Suspending implementation of programmed
improvements to the B-1B while a COEA is
completed (typically a year-long
undertaking) will seriously disrupt the
readiness, reliability and performance of
a system the Bush
Administration’s 1992 “Bomber
Roadmap” called “the
backbone” of the U.S. bomber fleet
and the Clinton
Administration’s 1993 “Bottom-Up
Review” envisions as comprising the
largest percentage of the 184-aircraft
force. It would also,
ironically, have the effect of closing
down an important part of the bomber
industrial base — the critical design
teams and engineers involved in upgrading
the B-1B.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
strongly urges the members of the full
Appropriations Committee to affirm its
Defense Subcommittee’s recommendation
concerning the B-2 and reject its fencing
action regarding the B-1B. By so doing,
it will take sorely needed — and
internally consistent — steps to
give the United States the sort of large,
modern and flexible bomber force that any
number of analyses have shown will be
required for the foreseeable future.

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1. In connection
with Sen. Inouye’s leadership on the B-2
issue, see the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled, Impassioned Appeals
by Leading Democrats Opens Critical New
Stage in Fight to Build More B-2s,
(No. 94-D 73,
14 July 1994).

2. The powerful
arguments for such an action are
contained in a summary of a Roundtable
discussion sponsored by the Center for
Security Policy. See The Case
for Continued Production of the B-2
Bomber: Center Roundtable Shows Why the
U.S. Can’t Afford to Stop Now,
(No. 94-P 64,
24 June 1994).