Air Force secretary says service needs $20 billion more a year

The Air Force needs an additional $20 billion a year to buy major new aircraft and other systems at a more efficient rate and to cover the growing cost of health care, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said Monday.

After cutting 40,000 personnel, "we cannot see our way clear for further reductions in our warfighting force," Wynne told reporters at an Air Force Association forum.

In fact, because of plans to increase the number of Army combat brigades, they may need to add personnel to supply the combat controllers and other airmen normally assigned to support those ground units, added Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff.

Air Force officials have complained increasingly that the high cost of maintaining and equipping the Army and Marine Corps forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanding those ground forces are taking funds they need.

Their studies indicate "we need $20 billion a year, which would allow us to buy at more economical rates," Wynne said. In addition, the secretary said, the Air Force needs to retire some of its oldest aircraft, which are becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, and to achieve "some other efficiencies."

Moseley also voiced concern over the aging of the air fleet, pleading again for Congress to "give us the freedom to manage our inventory and lift the restrictions on retirements."

Members of Congress concerned with losing jobs at air bases they represent have prevented the Air Force from retiring some of its oldest aircraft, including B-52s, C-130s and the original model of the giant C-5 transports.

Instead, Congress has ordered the Air Force to conduct a test program of the cost-effectiveness of an extensive modernization of the C-5As, which have very low availability rates.

Advocates of the C-5, including Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have accused the Air Force of trying to undermine that effort by encouraging Boeing to continue buying long-lead items for additional C-17 transports, which could replace the Galaxies.

But Wynne and Moseley said there was a wide disparity in the estimated cost of the C-5 program between Air Force officials and Lockheed Martin Corp., which built the Galaxies.

Moseley said estimates have run as high as $17 billion to update 100 of the oldest C-5s.Wynne said if the program improved availability by 10 percent, it would amount to gaining 10 airplanes. At $17 billion, "those are expensive airplanes," he said.

Wynne also said the cost of the C-5 update has increased possibly as much as 25 percent, which would be a violation of the Nunn-McCurdy cost-control law and require a review by the Pentagon's acquisition office.

But the secretary said officials will abide by the law requiring the C-5 update, even though he indicated a preference to buy more C-17s -- which, although smaller, are more versatile and have a high availability rate. The House Armed Services Committee authorized buying 10 additional C-17s, but neither of the defense appropriations panels has provided the money in their fiscal 2008 spending bills.