That’s essentially the message Wednesday from Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, to the Defense Department. In his opening statement for the panel’s markup of the Fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, Inouye reminded the Pentagon leadership that DOD’s track record for predicting future threats and hot spots is “not perfect.” Indeed, while Inouye’s panel supported the major program terminations put forth by the Obama Administration, including halting F-22 production—with the C-17 being one exception (see above)—Inouye stated the following: “As we go forward today killing the F-22, the Presidential helicopter, the combat search and rescue helicopter, the kinetic energy interceptor, we do so in the hope that today’s military and civilian leaders are more prescient than their predecessors in predicting our future needs,” he wrote. (Inouye statement and SAC-D markup summary)
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.