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Fuzzy Math
Fuzzy Math: Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Services air and land forces panel, said he does not understand how Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived at the $7 billion to $14 billion figures when estimating the added costs to the Air Force of a split tanker buy. Reuters news wire service reported April 19 that Abercrombie cannot mesh how the extra costs could be so high given that the Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS tanker models are “two commercial airliners essentially.” Gates told an audience April 15 at Air University at Maxwell AFB, Ala., that he was laying his body “down across the tracks” in opposition to a split tanker buy and instead favors a winner-take-all contest. (Full transcript of his remarks.) On the previous day, he cited the lofty cost figures, saying those extra dollars would be needed just in the next five years to cover both companies’ developmental work on their respective tanker models. Despite that, Abercrombie told Reuters, that he still remains open to the split buy, an approach that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, has said he also supports.
4/21/2009
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Verbatim
No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010. |
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