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Long Delay In Tanker Deal Will Hurt Nation's Security

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 17, 2009

Unless the White House comes to its senses, pilots at MacDill Air Force Base and other bases will have to continue flying Cold War-era refueling tankers for five years.

This would be an outrage. The hopelessly outdated planes in the current fleet of KC-135 warplanes were built in the 1950s and 1960s and require constant repairs.

Yet the White House has signaled the Pentagon that the long-delayed purchase of new tankers now should be put off another five years.

These refueling tankers are vital to our military operations. As Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., says, "The longer we wait to begin building tankers, the more we jeopardize our many global operations, from war-fighting to relief efforts, which depend on this vital platform."

It's true the Air Force's effort to build a new fleet of tankers has been a debacle.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last year rightly called for rebidding the contract, which earlier had been awarded to Northrop-EADS, after Boeing protested that the Air Force did not follow its own guidelines in reviewing bids.

The General Accounting Office agreed that Boeing's complaint had merit. So the competition for a contract that could be worth as much as $100 billion started over.

And Gates put the Pentagon in charge of the review, since he didn't trust the Air Force to manage the task. He fired the Air Force secretary and chief of staff last year after a number of embarrassing blunders, including the bungling of the KC-135 contract. In another infamous case, a B-52 bomber flew from North Dakota to Louisiana carrying armed nuclear missiles that the crew didn't know about.

So a temporary delay in the tanker contract, while regrettable, is necessary.

But now the White House, seeking to cut expenses, wants to delay the tanker fleet purchase for five years and also cancel plans for a new long-range bomber. The Office of Management and Budget proposed both steps.

The president and his team can't be faulted for wanting to curtail spending, but the safety of the nation's troops and success of its military depend on a reliable refueling fleet, and that can't be provided with 50-year-old planes.

Rep. Kathy Castor, a Hillsborough Democrat, and Rep. Bill Young, a Pinellas Republican, are right to alert President Barack Obama to the dangers of further delay.

They wrote the president last week, urging him to move forward with a new fleet. The situation, they wrote, is a "safety concern for service members on refueling missions and is costing taxpayers money due to continued extensive maintenance."

President Obama and Secretary Gates should see that continued reliance on an aging refueling tanker fleet will compromise the military's effectiveness and undermine the nation's security.

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