Sen. John Warner: Buy Some, Lease Some

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) wants to get the Air Force tanker controversy over with. Done. Fini. So he's come up with a compromise plan that gets the Air Force the KC-135 replacements quickly by having the government lease some and buy the rest.

That would be a little different than what the president proposed. The White House wants to lease 100 Boeing 767 variants at a total cost of $17 billion. But, as ANN has reported, watchdog groups and Congressional critics of the deal say the price is outrageous. They claim the lease deal would cost $2 billion more than an outright purchase.

But the Air Force says time is not on its side. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) stood as the administration's lone champion for the lease deal. In hearings Thursday, he whipped out a corroded section of the belly from a KC-135 tanker and said the only way to fix the problem would be to throw even more money at it in a costly repair/refit operation. "I don't want the warfighter fighting in this plane," he said.

And Then There's The Bureaucracy

Two billion dollars is, by anyone's reckoning, a lot of money. But between the delays and reprioritizations that have made the USAF tanker fleet one of the biggest antique warplane collection in America (aside from the B-52 fleet), there are procurement rules and procedures that work against the process of replacement. For instance:

The Pentagon doesn't have $17 billion in loose change lying around to lease a fleet of aircraft -- especially when the newest thing flying in this controversy is an allegation that Boeing beefed up the price of each aircraft amidst its own financial crisis.

For that matter, the Pentagon doesn't have $12 billion in the bank for a purchase deal on the 100 aircraft.

Congress apparently can't order a multi-year purchase funded on the installment plan. But that sets a precedent that government reformers have been trying to erase for years. The project would be, in essence, unfunded every time a new payment came due. That violates a government policy that says all projects must be funded at the time of purchase.

The compromise deal put forth by Warner and company is an indication of lawmakers' willingness to tackle the deal. That corroded piece of KC-135 belly plating was a powerful visual aid for those who back some sort of a fleet rejuvenation program. In their willingness, members of the House and Senate seem willing to bend the rules, to look at "unconventional" ways of drumming up the necessary dollars. But even that willingness to roll with the punches is drawing fire from those who say, again, it would set an unwanted precedent.

In the meantime, day and night, Air Force crews who have arguably one of the most important gigs in the military, are working with aircraft older than they are. And, as shown by that belly plate in Thursday's hearing, there's not much time to waste. It'll have to be left until later to find out why the problem of tanker fleet replacement had to become a major military and Congressional crisis before it was addressed.

FMI: www.af.mil