Now They Tell Us: JSF Two Years Behind Schedule

CQ‘s Josh Rogin has a massive scoop that has the potential to upset administration plans to kill the F-22 after a Senate vote earlier this week seemed to seal the fate of the air supremacy fighter. According to Rogin, “An internal Pentagon oversight board has found that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is two years behind the publicly announced schedule, say multiple congressional aides familiar with the findings.” Why is that important? Because “as Congress has debated the future of the F-22 fighter program, lawmakers have used the promise of the F-35 plane’s completion as a key plank in their argument that the F-22 line could be ended without a significant risk to national security.” One defense expert emails in response to the revelations, “Gates and company get caught hiding the ball once again. Just another piece of evidence suggesting the decision to end the F-22’s production was driven not by analysis and study but simply a desire to cut the budget.” Indeed, it’s clear the Pentagon sat on a report that undermined the administration’s case for killing the F-22 until after a key Senate vote. “Now, senators and aides are lamenting that the Pentagon oversight panel’s more pessimistic view on the F-35 program was not publicly released during the F-22 debate and are calling for more open disclosure of the problems with the development of the F-35,” Rogin reports. Assuming there are no further problems in production — an absurd assumption — “The oversight panel’s calculations determined that the fighter won’t be able to move out of the development phase and into full production mode until 2016, rather than 2014 as the program office has said.” Of course, the JSF program has already faced major delays and according to this Pentagon report, the additional two year delay “could cost as much as $7.4 billion.” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell denies there’s been any cover-up, but as CQ points out, the Joint Estimate Team’s findings are at odds with statements from administration officials and members of Congress who had lobbied for killing F-22 as a redundant with so much already being spent on F-35.