Forward Observer: Lost at Sea

A political play that promises to have a long run has just debuted in the new Congress. It pits powerful lawmakers against President Bush, pushes Navy leaders into the crossfire and shows why ship builders are pricing the nation out of the warships it needs to cover global hotspots.

At the center of the battle is an aircraft carrier that, fittingly, was born in controversy: the USS John F. Kennedy. The Navy intended the Kennedy to be nuclear powered. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara insisted the engine room burn oil instead. McNamara won. Navy admirals lost. But Kennedy sailors found themselves with a consolation prize. The carrier's oversized tanks, intended to hold water to cool nuclear reactors, enabled sailors to take long, hot showers rather than endure water rationing.

President Bush fueled the unfolding drama by asking Congress in his fiscal 2006 defense budget to save money by cutting the carrier fleet from 12 ships to 11. The Kennedy is the logical carrier to take out of service to meet the president's goal because it is most in need of expensive repair.

The Kennedy's home port is Mayport, Fla., and thousands of Floridians make their living keeping it in fighting trim. Bush -- aware that his brother, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, and the state's congressional delegation would fight the removal of the Kennedy and the loss of jobs -- included money in the Navy's budget that could be used to study the environmental impact of upgrading the port to handle a nuclear carrier once the Kennedy was retired. But, with the fleet capped at 11 carriers, the Bush brothers would have to rob Peter to pay Paul.

The "Peter" they have to worry most about in this case is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., protector of the five nuclear carriers and thousands of jobs attached to them in Norfolk, Va., the only other East Coast carrier port.

Bush has put Warner in the difficult position of bucking his president or offending his Virginia constituents by going along with sending a Norfolk-based carrier to Mayport as a consolation prize for losing the Kennedy. If Mayport does not get a carrier, a future base closing commission would no doubt ask why the country needs a carrier port that has no carriers. So the stakes are high for politicians in both Virginia and Florida.

Warner seems unfazed by the carrier fight, at least for the moment. "I'm 77 years old," he told me recently. "I've reached the point where I don't have to worry about anything." That was an overstatement, of course, but during the unveiling of the carrier proposal before his committee last week Warner said it would take three to five years to settle the issue. He sees no need to panic now.

But Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., are among the pols who don't want to take a chance. They have introduced a bill to forbid Bush or any other president from reducing the carrier fleet. Their bill, introduced Jan. 25, states that "the naval combat force of the Navy shall include not less than 12 operational aircraft carriers."

Caught in the Florida vs. Virginia crossfire is the Navy's top sailor, Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark. He is against putting all the Navy's carriers in one port, fearing this might invite a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack. His view is helping the Florida delegation make its case for upgrading Mayport at a cost of some $200 million and obtaining a nuclear carrier to replace the Kennedy.

Japan also plays a part in the carrier fight. Since thousands of people were incinerated by atomic bombs during World War II, Japanese leaders have refused to allow nuclear-powered ships to be based in their ports. The non-nuclear USS Kitty Hawk, even older than the Kennedy but considered by the Navy to be in better shape, is based in Yokosuka, Japan. So, Nelson is asking, why not keep the Kennedy, the only other non-nuclear carrier in service, around for Japanese duty?

Adm. Clark, who is retiring from the Navy, seems perfectly willing to stand in the congressional crossfire as long as it results in Congress getting interested in the sorry state of shipbuilding. He warned the Senate Armed Service Committee that U.S. shipbuilders are pricing themselves and the Navy out of business.

"Shipbuilding cost increases have grown beyond our ability to control," he warned. The way prices are escalating, Clark said, the Navy might only have enough money to buy a fleet of 250 ships, a big drop from the 600-ship Navy that former Navy Secretary John Lehman persuaded President Reagan the nation needed to cover hotspots around the world.

The looming ship gap "is very clearly" a national security issue, Clark told the Senate committee in his farewell posture statement. He said that even after allowing for inflation, between 1967 and 2005 the price of submarines went up 401 percent; guided-missile destroyers 123 percent, and nuclear carriers 100 percent.

The admiral clearly caught the attention of former Navy Secretary Warner and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former carrier aviator who urged the chairman to delve into the shipbuilding crisis. While Warner stopped short of publicly committing himself to a shipbuilding inquiry, one seems certain to come out of the fight over how many carriers the nation needs for the 21st century and where they should be based.