Congress Backs Pentagon Budget Heavy on Future Weapons

But the Sept. 11 attacks and the combat that followed diverted Rumsfeld from his transformation initiatives and also increased the Pentagon's respect for more orthodox existing weapons that they once considered phasing out. These included the Air Force's slow-flying but reliable A-10, which supports ground forces, and the Army's M-1 tank.

"Afghanistan and Iraq have injected a long-overdue sense of realism in the decisions at DOD about how much you can foresee the future," retired Army Col. Richard H. Sinnreich said. "After 9/11, a whole bunch of things changed."

After the terrorist attacks, the Pentagon continued to move ahead with "essentially all of the major acquisitions included in the Clinton administration defense plan," according to a recent report of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The view was echoed in a March report drafted by a panel of defense experts and retired military and Pentagon officials at the request of two prominent think tanks, the Center for Defense Information and Foreign Policy in Focus. It concluded that "the Bush military budget is being spent on a force structure that does not match today's security challenges because it is designed for a cold war style large-scale conventional challenge that we no longer face."

Some changes and cutbacks are being made around the edges of the budget.

In February, the Army canceled development of its future helicopter, the Comanche, to free more funds for immediate wartime needs.

Congress last year cut planned purchases of the Navy's new Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines from seven to five through 2008.

This year, the Senate Armed Services Committee, citing production delays, proposed reducing procurement of the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor from 24 to 22 planes. The House-passed defense authorization bill reduces funding for developing the Littoral Combat Ship and the next-generation DD(X) destroyer.

But whether any of those cuts will survive the coming negotiations between the House and Senate, or will pass muster with the appropriations committees that make the final decisions, is highly questionable, if Congress's performance on previous defense bills is any indication.

The cost of the stealthy F-22 air-to-air fighter in the 2005 budget is $5 billion, and that of a second combat aircraft in the development stage, the Joint Strike Fighter, is $4.5 billion. Lockheed Martin Corp. is prime contractor for both planes, as well as for the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), a satellite network that is supposed to be a key part of a defense against missile attack.

Envisioned in the 1980s as a radar-evading plane that could take on Soviet fighters deep over Russia, the F-22's future role now is more ambiguous because no country is developing an aircraft with anything near its capabilities.

"We haven't faced an enemy with an Air Force to speak of since 1945, except for a few MiGs in North Korea and Vietnam," said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate Republican aide who is author of a forthcoming book on Congress and defense.

The combined cost of the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter in 2005 will equal about a fifth of federal aid to education and half of the budget for all foreign aid and military assistance.

But about 1,000 contractors in 43 states work on the F-22, and they are well-connected in Congress.

Six members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have urged reconsideration of the cut even though they acknowledged that producing even 22 planes a year "exceeds the contractor's current capability to produce aircraft."

Senior military officials and defense industry representatives argue that pinching pennies on security is a serious mistake in uncertain times. Advanced weapons such as the F-22, they say, provide such a wide technological "gap" that they deter potential enemies such as China from trying to catch up.

"If we're to maintain our power and leadership in the world, we have to be able to maintain these capabilities. . . . It's an insurance policy for our country," said Tom Jurkowsky, spokesman for Lockheed Martin.