, The Defense Department vetoed Navy and Air Force plans to cut the number of Lockheed Martin-made F-35 joint strike fighters they would buy next year.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England ordered the services to add $1.8 billion to their fiscal 2008 budgets. He told the Air Force to buy six fighters instead of four and the Navy, which proposed to buy no fighters in 2008, to buy six. At the same time, he agreed to let both services buy fewer aircraft than planned between 2009 and 2013.
England's orders, relayed to the service secretaries in a 60-page memo last month, reflect a desire to support the F-35, an international project and the Pentagon's largest weapons program, while still paying extraordinary costs associated with the Iraq and Afghan conflicts and meeting the Navy's commitment to increase the fleet, analysts said.
“England's decision amounts to putting his finger in the F- 35 dike,” because both the Navy and Air Force are indicating “waning” support in the face of these other demands, said Thomas Ehrhard, a military-aircraft analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington.
Both services also may be asked to help fund the cost of increasing the size of the Army, an initiative Bush ordered last month, Ehrhard said.
The F-35's estimated $276 billion price tag “represents a huge chunk” of future spending, “but so far, nobody at the top is willing to pull the plug,” Ehrhard said.
Kevin Wensing, a spokesman for England, declined to comment on the decision except to say that the Pentagon's leaders and “our allies are committed to this important program.”
England's “Program Decision Memorandum,” signed Dec. 13, is one of four directives sent to the military service secretaries, chiefs of staff and Pentagon acquisition officials that spell out spending priorities through fiscal 2013 for space, aircraft, special operations, healthcare and defense intelligence programs.
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