General VUONO (19 March '91, before Senate Armed Services Committee): "I'd like to have had the C-17 aircraft."

NARRATOR: The Pentagon wants to spend $40 billion on a new fleet of cargo planes.

General McPEAK (19 March '91, before Senate Armed Services Committee): "We simply need to get on with the lift replacement aircraft, the C-17."

NARRATOR: It's called the C-17, and the Pentagon wants 120 of them to haul soldiers and equipment all over the world.

President Clinton wants the plane, too. But even though it will be one of the Pentagon's most expensive new pieces of equipment, most Americans we spoke to hadn't even heard of it.

INTERVIEWER: Are you in favor of the C-17?

MAN-on-the-Street: I don't know what the C-17 is.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with what a C-17 is.

MAN-on-the-Street: What's the C-17?

INTERVIEWER: Do you support the C-17?

MAN-on-the-Street: What is the C-17?

MAN-on-the-Street: What is the C-17?

MAN-on-the-Street: I don't even know what the C-17 is.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: I don't know. I don't think I could comment on it really because I don't know enough about it.

NARRATOR: Watch "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" and see what the C-17 is all about.

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]

Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."

For the past 40 or 50 years, Americans have been will-ing to spend whatever money the Pentagon wanted for whatever weapons system the Pentagon said it needed. Today, however, with the many other shortages in our country and the need for funds to correct those problems, Americans are beginning to question the need for some of the new weapons systems the Pentagon has requested.

Our program is about one of those systems today, the

C-17. I think you'll find it interesting.

NARRATOR: The United States has spent billions of dollars over the past 50 years building thousands of ships and cargo planes to move troops and equipment to distant battlegrounds. As the war against Iraq proved, America has a very large and capable fleet for transporting soldiers and weapons around the globe.

Most of these cargo planes look alike. They have similar names. The largest is the C-5 Galaxy, which can carry our largest battle tanks. The United States has 125 of these. Then there is the smaller C-141 Starlifter. The United States has 265 of these. Both of these planes can be refueled while in the air and can fly from the United States to any point on the globe.

The Pentagon also operates more than 700 C-130 Hercules. However, unlike the C-5s and the C-141s, which fly intercontinental routes, the Hercules normally fly much shorter distances. They fly soldiers and cargo from supply centers and staging fields in the rear to locations in and near combat zones. These are the planes you've seen on TV bringing aid to remote villages in Somalia.

Rear Admiral EUGENE CARROLL: In very straightforward terms, you have intercontinental long-range aircraft to bring troops and priority supplies directly from the United States to the battle region.

NARRATOR: Admiral Eugene Carroll, the articulate deputy director of the Center for Defense Information and former commander of the carrier Midway explains how these planes work together.

Admiral CARROLL: Then you have tactical or short range transport aircrafts, primarily the C-130 Hercules, which pick up troops and smaller collections of cargo at staging airfields and fly them to the battle front, to tactical airfields in direct support of the troops. It takes both phases to get the troops and material from the United States to the commander on the battlefield.

NARRATOR: The U.S. military can also rely on 500 civilian-owned airplanes that are in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF. The Air Force pays about $700 million each year to approximately 32 airlines which participate in CRAF for the right to call airplanes like this into service when needed.

All in all, the United States can rely on more than 1,800 cargo planes to support global military operations. That dwarfs the airlift capability of any other country.

Very importantly, the United States also has the capability of moving a great deal of military equipment by sea. About 60 cargo, tanker and pre-positioned supply ships are in the active fleet, and over 230 ships are in the reserves. Only with sealift can large military forces with heavy equipment be moved from the United States to war zones around the world.

Ships were the work horse during the conflict with Iraq, moving 95 percent of all the cargo to the Middle East. During the first three weeks of Desert Shield, the U.S. military transported more people and equipment than during the first three months of the Korean War.

This capacity to transport military forces has given the United States the ability to assume the role of world police-man, according to Admiral Carroll.

Admiral CARROLL: The existence of military capabilities is an invitation to find a reason to use them. If we're going to invest tens of billions of dollars in military systems, somebody is going to have to demonstrate sometime that it was a good investment and that we're getting our money's worth. I'm afraid there is a willingness in the United States today by our military leaders to take military commitments just to show that these forces are necessary.

NARRATOR: Since the end of World War II, the United States has developed a pattern of intervening with combat forces all over the world. Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, the Persian Gulf and Somalia are only the latest places America has used combat forces far from the United States. And mobility forces like this make it possible.

General Springer had a distinguished 36 year career in the Air Force. His last assignment was as vice commander-in-chief of the Military Airlift Command.

General ROBERT SPRINGER: If you look at what the airlift capability has done in the showing of the American flag, whether it's a flood, or a hurricane, or a typhoon, or too much snow, or too much drought, or whatever it may be around the world, wherever there is a little havoc, there is always an air mobility command airplane there representing the United States and the good deeds of this country, because we are a pretty compassionate nation when we're dealing with other people like that.

NARRATOR: Most recently, American planes have been busy hauling humanitarian aid to Somalia. Yet the United States doesn't build these multimillion dollar cargo planes for disaster relief. Their primary mission is to transport military forces and weapons for combat any place in the world.

Having this large airlift capacity is very expensive. Besides the original cost of buying the airplanes, they cost a lot to operate. The C-5 costs $4,700 an hour. A one-way trip from the east coast air base at Dover, Delaware to Saudi Arabia costs about $52,000.

In the war with Iraq, we saw the largest air and sealift within a short time period in world history, yet the Pentagon wants to buy 120 new C-17s, ostensibly to replace the

C-141 Starlifters, which the Air Force will soon begin retiring.

Secretary of Defense RICHARD CHENEY (26 April '90, before House Armed Services Committee):

"The C-141 has obviously been around a long time. We need to begin the replacement process."

NARRATOR: So far, ten C-17 airplanes have been funded and are in various stages of being built. These four C-17s are the only ones complete enough to fly. Besides replacing the C-141 Starlifters, C-17 supporters say the C-17 will give the United States a new capability we don't have now.

General SPRINGER: C-17 gives you that intercontinental capability that you get with the big airplanes, the 5s and 141s, but it also gives you the tactical capability that you get with the C-130s today. And that is the major reason for having the

C-17.

NARRATOR: The Pentagon claims that the C-17 will be able to land on short, 3000 foot runways.

Secretary CHENEY (26 April '90, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing):

"The C-17 has been designed specifically to land in short fields, short strips all over the world. It gives us access to a lot more airports than is currently the case, a lot more airfields than with our current capabilities."

NARRATOR: However, as you can see from this film about the C-5's capabilities, the C-5 can also land on short runways. It can even land on unpaved runways. It can also back up.

Russell Murray, the insightful Assistant Secretary of Defense for Program Analysis and Evaluation during the Carter administration, thinks the current fleet of C-5 Galaxies are flexible enough to land wherever they're needed.

RUSSELL MURRAY: When we built the C-5 back in the sixties we put a 28-wheel landing gear on it so that it would land without any runways at all. It landed on semi-prepared fields. So, it actually has a better unprepared field capability than the C-17 does. As far as the landing distance, if the C-5 carries as little as the C-17 does, its landing distances are comparable.

NARRATOR: How does the proposed C-17 stack up against the cargo planes the United States already has? Russell Murray thinks the advertised capabilities of the C-17 will add nothing significant to America's ability to transport military forces around the world.

Mr. MURRAY: Look, what you've got, you've got an airplane like the C-5, which is larger, it goes farther, it carries more. It costs less and it has zero development risk and has a logis- tics system already set up, because we already have a number of them, as opposed to the C-17 which is smaller, doesn't carry as much, doesn't go as far, faces development risks, which we are seeing happen today, and has no logistics system set up for it at all.

NARRATOR: The C-17 will be extremely expensive. The total cost for this new fleet of cargo planes has doubled since the early 1980s. It is now estimated that 120 C-17 cargo planes will cost over $40 billion. That's $333 million per aircraft, a staggering amount when you compare it to the cost of a cargo Boeing 747, which sells for about $150 million, or a C-5, which costs about $170 million. Both planes can fly twice as far and carry twice as much as a C-17.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Well, I would say that I'd be in favor of it to carry cargo to help other nations, but at the same time, I think that that's very expensive and there's a lot of things that need to be done here first. I mean, our economy needs a lot of help and just putting a lot more money back into planes and military and so forth, and I think that's been the problem overall.

NARRATOR: Most people we spoke to said they wanted their tax dollars spent elsewhere.

MAN-on-the-Street: Education. We need more urban aid and rehabilitation for housing in the city, so people have a place to live.

MAN-on-the-Street: I'd rather have the military spending it than giving it out in social programs.

MAN-on-the-Street: I don't know. I think we've been way up to our necks in defense for too long.

MAN-on-the-Street: It's probably money well spent.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: It's not how I want my money spent.

MAN-on-the-Street: On domestic problems, the environment, infrastructure, everything right here in the United States.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Peace is breaking out all over and the Soviet Union no longer exists. I can't see justification for that. When you walk around the streets of Washington and every- one is holding out a cup to you for your spare change, how can the country justify spending millions of dollars on more war toys? I'm completely against that.

NARRATOR: Forty billion dollars is so much money, it's hard to grasp. For the cost of just one C-17 cargo plane, 60 subway cars, 52 commuter rail locomotives and 250 buses could be bought.

What was the original justification for the C-17? During the early 1980s, the Pentagon said it needed the ability to reinforce American soldiers stationed in Europe in case of a massive Soviet-Warsaw Pact attack.

Secretary CHENEY (26 April '90, before House Armed Services Committee):

"With respect to the requirement that had originally been identified for the C-17, that of course focused most speci- fically in wartime upon the need to send a lot of troops to Europe fast. We've operated on the assumption that we had to have as part of our commitment to NATO -- it's a written commitment -- we had to have ten divisions in Europe within ten days of a decision to mobilize. We've operated on the assumption of short warning time and that we had to be able to pick up and deploy a lot assets over there rapidly."

NARRATOR: During the early 1980s, the Pentagon conducted a study which called for developing and building the C-17. But many observers questioned the objectivity of the study, which ignored the abilities of the existing C-5.

STEVE LeSUEUR: When it came time for the Air Force to decide on a new airlifter, they wanted to build the C-17.

NARRATOR: Steve LeSueur is the knowledgeable chief editor of Inside the Pentagon, an in-depth investigative newsletter that reports on what's happening behind the scenes at the Defense Department.

He told us that some of his sources in the Pentagon believe the Air Force skewed the analysis in order to justify building the C-17.

Mr. LeSUEUR: They did not want to continue building the

C-5, C-141 and so, what they did is they loaded up the require- ment to land on short airstrips -- those are the 3000 foot airstrips -- so that, with that requirement in mind, they could point to those airstrips all over the world and say this is where the C-17 can land and the C-5 cannot and, therefore, we need the C-17 because the C-5 just doesn't meet this requirement.

Mr. MURRAY: I think the analysis was one of the most biased Madison Avenue sales jobs that the Air Force could come up with to sell the C-17.

NARRATOR: Russell Murray also thinks the Air Force study justifying the C-17 was deceitful.

Mr. MURRAY: Early in the Reagan administration, when the Air Force did their so-called airlift master plan, where they came up with an analysis that alleged to show that the C-17 would be a less expensive solution than just continuing production with the C-5. And in my opinion, it was a highly fraudulent analysis.

Admiral CARROLL: Well, of course, military services always want new equipment. They want new planes, and new tanks, and new ships and so on.

NARRATOR: Admiral Carroll thinks it isn't practical to have one cargo plane fly directly from America to the battlefield, as the C-17 is supposed to do.

Admiral CARROLL: If you were really going to fight the war at the end of an air pipeline from the United States, you'd have to have hundreds or maybe a thousand of those airplanes to begin to deliver enough men and materiel to the battle front.

The second reason why one airplane can't fight the war for you from the United States is because you run out of fuel. There just isn't that much fuel in the world, really, to fly these airplanes all the way to the battlefront and then all the way back to the United States and load up again. You have to have a staging process and bring the fuel in largely by ship in order to keep the whole air pipeline open to the battle front.

NARRATOR: So, the need for the C-17 even during the Cold War was questionable.

Is it needed today? Now that the Cold War is over, the Pentagon no longer speaks of reinforcing Europe. Instead, the argument is that the C-17 is needed to fight in the Third World.

Secretary CHENEY (26 April '90, before House Armed Services Committee):

"You have today, and will continue to have the need to be able to move forces to other parts of the world -- Third World contingencies, Panama, Persian Gulf, whatever it might be -- Korea."

NARRATOR: With the Soviet Union gone, the Pentagon is inventing new reasons to continue building weapons originally designed to fight the Cold War, according to Admiral Carroll.

Admiral CARROLL: Now that that enemy has disappeared, there isn't any high tech enemy to fight. We're dealing with Third World situations, third rate military adversaries. They simply are trying to find a justification for that same huge investment in high tech equipment and say it applies in the Third World.

It doesn't. We don't need those kinds of weapons. We don't need to invest that money for capabilities that aren't needed for efficient, effective combat forces.

NARRATOR: What are some other elements propelling the C-17 forward?

One factor is that parts for the C-17 are made in almost every state in the nation. McDonnell Douglas, the world's largest manufacturer of weapons and the prime contractor for the C-17, has shrewdly located its factories and selected hundreds of subcontractors in 40 different states. This way, many members of Congress are likely to support it because the C-17 means jobs for their constituents.

Rep. WAYNE OWENS (D-UT): It's indicative when you see the political infrastructure that they built to try to sell the C-17 by having it built in most of the states across the country and getting the mayors and governors, the local congressional people to accept it as a home town project, you see exactly why we are so totally out of control in terms of all the federal expendi- tures.

NARRATOR: As an active member of the 102nd Congress, Wayne Owens was a plain speaking, hard-hitting representative from Utah.

Rep. OWENS: You can't kill any programs because they build the constituencies before they authorize the defense system. And so, we go on now merrily building Cold War weapons systems that have no relevance to today's needs. Unless and until Congress is willing to cut programs that impact in different congressional and senatorial homes, you're never ever going to solve the defi- cit problem. You're going to go on with $350- to $400 billion deficits.

NARRATOR: Even though some of Congressman Owen's former constituents did subcontractor work on the C-17, he voted against it. We asked him why.

Rep. OWENS: The program that's really bad for the country -- This was a $40 to $50 billion unneeded expenditure. A program that's bad for America is bad for Utah.

NARRATOR: Another reason why the C-17 has so much support in the Pentagon may have to do with the failing financial health of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation.

MEMBER of CONGRESS (at committee hearing): "McDonnell Douglas was in financial trouble and needed to get this $1.65 billion liability off the balance sheet, and you folks rushed up the process to do it."

NARRATOR: Congress has held hearings and the Defense Department's inspector general has investigated to see if the Air Force improperly speeded-up progress payments to McDonnell Douglas in order to help the cash-strapped company.

MEMBER of CONGRESS (at committee hearing): "You were told to reverse $100 and some million entry. That's no small potatoes."

NARRATOR: They're also investigating C-17 production and performance problems, such as rivets being improperly installed on the wings, wing flaps not being able to withstand the hot exhaust from the plane's engines, the plane's failure to meet range and payload weight specifications and its inability to make steep descents. And the General Accounting Office, or GAO, concluded that the Pentagon's rushed manufacturing schedule of the C-17 would result in too many planes being built before all the developmental bugs have been worked out.

Mr. LeSUEUR: What the General Accounting Office was saying though is, given the extent of the problems that we've had with the C-17 up to this point in time -- they brought out problems with fuel leaks, and problems with delays in flight testing, and problems with the software, and the cost overruns, what they said is it's too risky to try and do both the development and the production at this time. So, they recommended not buying as many aircraft.

NARRATOR: Despite these and many more problems, the Air Force continues with the C-17. Some observers think the Pentagon is using the C-17 program to bail McDonnell Douglas out of its financial difficulties.

With the Cold War over, what new options does the United States have?

The Pentagon, under the Bush administration, planned to retire the fleet of 141s and stick with the C-17.

Secretary CHENEY (26 April '90, before Senate Armed Services Committee):

"What we're proposing is that we buy C-17s, sufficient number and at a rate that will let us maintain that capability that's out there today."

President BILL CLINTON (1992 campaign speech at Georgetown University):

"If he doesn't have a plan to turn the economy around by 1992, we're going to lay George Bush off, put America back to work, and our problems will go away."

NARRATOR: Bill Clinton said he supported the C-17 during the presidential campaign. However, he probably wasn't aware of better alternatives, according to Russell Murray. Mr. Murray thinks the United States ought to terminate the C-17 and buy more C-5s.

Mr. MURRAY: I think we do need more airlift. I still think the C-17 is the wrong choice. If the C-17 is our only choice, then I would endorse it. But I'm not sure it still wouldn't be possible to go back and build more C-5s, which is a much better airplane.

NARRATOR: What about extending the life of the current

C-141s, the airplane the C-17 is supposed to replace?

General SPRINGER: Well, that's risky business.

NARRATOR: General Springer says the C-141s are too old, have reached the end of their useful lives, and are beyond repair. A recent GAO report also found serious problems with the C-141s, but it also found that the Air Force has not been aggres-sively maintaining these planes. Some observers think the Air Force is like a guy who drives his car into the ground by never changing the oil or giving his car a tune-up, and then justifies buying a new car with the argument that his old car didn't work.

Congress is not convinced that the C-141 should be scrapped. It directed the Pentagon to study the viability of extending the life of the C-141s.

More fundamentally, however, does the United States even need to maintain its current airlift capability?

Secretary CHENEY (12 April '90, before House Armed Services Committee):

"In the years ahead, we are likely to have fewer of our forces deployed overseas. That is to say, that as we draw down in the Pacific, and we've specifically now embarked upon a course of cutting back our deployments in Japan and Korea by 10 percent, as we draw down in Europe, as we draw down other places in the world, that we will end up at a point ten or 15 years down the road having a larger percentage of a larger force deployed in the continental United States. And I think that is another argument for why it's important for us to maintain this kind of strategic lift capability that will allow us to deploy those assets when necessary."

Admiral CARROLL: This is once again an invitation to the United States to be the world's policemen. Here we have all these forces, we're investing hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We better find a reason to use them. If we're going to use them, let's have airplanes that can get them there quickly and commit them to battle. We've got all of the military power needed to overwhelm any foreseeable enemy in the United States and we can't afford to go on investing in high tech marvels like the C-17 on the grounds it is necessary to defeat Saddam Hussein again.

Admiral LaROCQUE: Well, I hope all those numbers like the

C-130, and the C-141s, and the C-5, and the C-17s didn't confuse you too much. But when you boil it all down, it's just a ques- tion of whether or not we want to continue spending a lot of money for military weapons, military systems or whether we're going to make a decision in this country to shift our priorities to focus more attention on our needs in the domestic sphere. It's going to be interesting in the months and years ahead to see what the newly elected representatives in Washington will do on this on this issue.

I hope you found the program interesting and until the next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.

[End of broadcast.]