NARRATOR: After 40 years of military competition with the Soviet Union, Americans ended up owning an extensive arsenal of modern warplanes. Innocent initials like AWACS, B-1b, C-5 and

F-15 are the military's handy shorthand for an immensely capable fleet of deadly warplanes bought to confront and to contain the Soviet Union.

Today, with no real enemies in sight, nothing spells controversy like the ABC's and F's of the Pentagon's plan to spend billions on still more costly warplanes.

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

Admiral EUGENE CARROLL: One uncomfortable legacy of the cold war is a collection of almost 100 new weapons systems that would cost us more than $1 trillion if we were to build them all. There's general agreement that we can't go forward with each weapon and the F-22 stealth fighter is one that's receiving a lot of attention.

Do we need it? Can we afford it? Or, is it one that we must drop? You're going to hear interesting people discussing both sides of this issue today. And since $100 billion dollars rides on the outcome, it is a fascinating topic.

NARRATOR: During his campaign for president, candidate Bill Clinton struck a chord with those parts of the United States left behind during the Reagan-Bush era surge in military spending. In cities, in schools, in factories and on farms, Clinton pledged to reduce military spending and direct the country's resources away from cold war weapons spending, toward America's urgent non-military needs.

But President Clinton has not cancelled a single major weapons system. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin has directed the Pentagon military planners to "tread water" until a comprehensive review of America's post-cold war military requirements is conducted.

Secretary of Defense LES ASPIN (27 March '93, Department of Defense Budget Briefing.):

"What we're doing is kind of treading water on two of the big ones, the R&D and the procurement account. Nothing very adventuresome there, pending the outcome of the bottom-up review."

NARRATOR: Unfortunately, America's economy is barely keeping its head above water as it is. Continuing cold war levels of military spending could sink us.

Senator JIM SASSER (D-TN) (Senate floor):

"And you really don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that when you buy a tank, that is a wasting invest-ment. It's not an investment, it's a wasting expenditure. Within a few years, that thing will be obsolete. It requires constant maintenance and it produces nothing by way of growth, economic produce. It is perhaps an insurance policy, but that's all.

"An investment in a school or investment in a machine that produces capital goods, investment in a factory, all those things produce things for long term growth."

NARRATOR: Americans will spend whatever it takes to protect the United States, but many weapons systems are underway that have little or no military justification. President Clinton wants to spend $277 billion on the military in 1994, $16 billion of which is only one more installment payment on unneeded cold war weapons. If all of these weapons are produced as planned, the total cost could reach $650 billion.

Of all the weapons programs before Congress, none sums up the economic recklessness of buying weapons we don't need like the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter program. Three prototype

F-22's are all taxpayers have to show for the $7 billion in military spending on the F-22 so far. In April 1992, an F-22 prototype crashed and burned at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The 1994 Clinton budget calls for spending yet another $2.2 billion for one year of further development costs. However, the billions committed to the plane so far are nothing compared to the money involved if the Air Force gets its way and the fighter is put into production. The proposed 648 airplanes will cost the American public an eye-popping $100 billion, making every F-22, if nothing else, the most expensive fighter plane ever built.

Among the many experts who challenge the need for the F-22 are influential members of Congress whose job it is to oversee military programs.

Senator DENNIS DeCONCINI (D-AZ): The fact is, we don't have this threat that we had ten years ago from the former Soviet Union.

NARRATOR: Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona is the chair-man of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He's a thoughtful and outspoken critic of the F-22.

Senator DeCONCINI: We have some of the state of the art, the F-15, the F-16, the F-111, 117. These are fantastic weapons that I think can take us into the early part of the next century before we start investing in a long-term, multi-billion dollar new fighter aircraft.

NARRATOR: During the cold war, the United States spent nearly $12 trillion, in today's dollars, preparing for war with the Soviet Union. A large part of that $12 trillion was spent on combat aircraft. Top of the line US fighter planes, like the

F-15, the F-16, and F/A-18 were the stars of the lopsided air war in the skies above Iraq. Nevertheless, there is pressure to build another costly cold war era warplane, even though it's clear the F-22 was intended to fight Soviet aircraft that will never be built.

DICK CHENEY, then-Secretary of Defense (26 April '90, before congressional committee):

"If we look to the future in terms of the kind of Soviet aircraft developments we anticipate in the years ahead, the general kinds of conclusions that we based our work on in connection with this review included the following: A general prediction that the Soviets will field two new fighter aircraft designs around the turn of the country, early 2000 timeframe."

NARRATOR: Tony Capaccio is a senior correspondent for Defense Week magazine. He has been covering the F-22 program since its inception.

TONY CAPACCIO: The original rationale was to go after, to be able to counter something called the future Soviet fighter. This was a flying bogeyman that the Air Force, much like the Army and the Navy, would sell their weapons systems on future Soviet systems. This was a future Soviet fighter, very nasty, very unknown, but very lethal.

NARRATOR: The primary reason for building the F-22 collapsed with the Soviet Union.

Senator SAM NUNN (D-GA) Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee (7 January '93, committee hearing):

"I do think we have to watch very closely what the Russians are doing in their development, but they have cut some-thing like 80 percent of all their military procurement. If you can imagine the scope and magnitude of that."

NARRATOR: The only other countries that possess combat aircraft comparable to America's current fighters are our friends and allies.

Senator DeCONCINI: We don't have the threat of advanced weapons from the Soviet Union or former Soviet Union. And even our competitors, allies that build similar type of equipment are not looking as far ahead as the F-22 that I'm aware of.

NARRATOR: No one is going to build aircraft superior to American planes anytime soon.

Josh Epstein is a highly respected military analyst at the Brookings Institution.

JOSH EPSTEIN: The F-15E is more than a match for Third World air forces that exist. The F-16, the same. The F-18, the same. The F-14, the same. Nobody's even close.

NARRATOR: France's Mirage and Rafale fighters, currently flown by over 15 countries; Sweden's Gripen, an attack and recon-naissance aircraft; and the Eurofighter 2000, built by a consortium of several European countries, along with several models of US fighters are found in some Third World air forces.

However, airplanes don't dog fight plane-to-plane as they used to in World Wars I and II. Without help from US AWACS planes, US military surveillance satellites and extensive US communications networks, even the modern warplanes built by our closest allies would be no match for the US military.

It's ironic and ought to be a matter of grave concern that the only conceivable danger to US combat pilots in future conflicts are warplanes built by our friends and allies, planes they sell to countries that may not like us. Agreements with our allies that limit the sale of advanced aircraft may be more effective than building more deadly aircraft ourselves.

Senator DeCONCINI: I also think there's some benefit in non-proliferation, not just nuclear weapons, but advanced fighters and other things that allies ought to be able to work with.

NARRATOR: Despite the F-15's excellent showing in the war with Iraq, supporters of the F-22 argue that F-15 fighters are getting old.

Colonel John Culclasure is an active duty Air Force pilot currently assigned to the Center for Strategic and Interna-tional Studies.

Lt. Col. JOHN CULCLASURE: The F-22 is going to replace the F-15, our current air superiority fighter. The F-15 was designed in the 60s, it was produced in the 70s, and it's beginning to experience airframe fatigue. And so, now it's time to come on line with another fighter.

NARRATOR: In fact, the average age of all F-15's now flying is under ten years. In addition, the F-15 design has also been modified and improved in recent years. Senator DeConcini, for one, feels our current fleet of fighters meets our needs.

Senator DeCONCINI: I'm sorry we're not going to build the F-15 anymore, because I think it's a marvelous plane. It still has many, many years ahead of it. We are continuing the F-16 and for good reason, we need those airplanes. We just have enough right now, in my judgment.

NARRATOR: Old age is not an issue with several other planes in the Air Force. Stalwart older planes, such as the B-52 bomber, with an average age of over 30 years, and a modified version of the F-4 fighter served in both the Vietnam War and the war with Iraq.

HOW MUCH WILL THE F-22 COST?

NARRATOR: If it's true that the United States has no military need for the F-22 advanced aircraft, then building it would be a waste of money on an unprecedented scale.

INTERVIEWER: Do you believe the estimates of the Pentagon for the cost of the F-22?

Senator DeCONCINI: I believe they're low, but I only say that based on historical experience and the CBO analysis that --

INTERVIEWER: Congressional Budget Office.

Senator DeCONCINI: Congressional Budget Office that says it's going to be much more than that. It's going to be over

$100 billion and could be as high as 150, I believe they say.

NARRATOR: Using an estimate of $150 million per plane, 100 F-22 planes would cost as much as it would take to rehabilitate 1,300,000 public housing units, about $15 billion. Furthermore, like most large weapons programs, the cost of the F-22 has risen consistently over the past five years.

Mr. CAPACCIO: The early cost estimates were mid-80s. 1988, the General Accounting Office came down with a report: For 750 aircraft, the thing was supposed to cost $88 million apiece. This year, it's $148 million procurement unit cost in escalated dollars for the mid-1990s for 648 planes.

NARRATOR: In simple English, an individual F-22 is the most expensive fighter plane ever built. By comparison, the durable

F-15 costs around $30 million each; the F-22, $150 million per copy. The single-seat F-16, about $20 million; the F-22, $150 million. The Navy's F/A-18 costs $35 million per aircraft; the

F-22, $150 million. The F-22 is really still on the drawing board and it's already four times more expensive than the proven F-15 fighter it's supposed to replace.

For the cost of the whole fleet of F-22s, aircraft designed to confront Soviet combat planes that will never be built, the United States could modernize and expand its entire national mass transit system.

For the $2 billion the military is spending on research and development costs for the F-22 this year alone the United States could have doubled what it spent on AIDS research.

Mr. CAPACCIO: From a cost standpoint, there's a lot of uncertainty about the program. Over the last two years, the Air Force has found that their budgets have been about $3 billion short of what they projected they're going to need for the aircraft.

NARRATOR: According to Tony Capaccio, because of the kind of contract between the Pentagon and the F-22's manufacturers, the American taxpayer may end up paying even more.

Mr. CAPACCIO: This is called "cost plus," which means the company is not held accountable for any costs that exceed the contract targets.

NARRATOR: This means that the government is ultimately responsible for any cost overruns the plane's builders run up. From the contractor's point of view, the more costs it can run up on the weapons program, the more money it makes.

Senator DeCONCINI: We just don't have the need nor do we have the money and the necessity to develop these kind of weapons, in my judgment.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a point when the F-22 will simply be too expensive to buy?

Mr. CAPACCIO: It may be at that point now for 648 aircraft. It's got great potential to be a major budget buster for the Clinton administration.

NARRATOR: Many Americans feel that there are more pressing dangers to the United States right here at home.

INTERVIEWER: What do you feel is the greatest threat currently facing the United States?

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Drugs. We need more help for health care and other issues.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Jobs. There aren't any jobs. All the jobs are going outside of the States.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: I think the homeless issue is pretty apparent.

MAN-on-the-Street: Homeless, schools. I think that's more important than any plane.

Senator DeCONCINI: We can't afford to continue all of this, in my judgment. And I may be dead wrong, but I feel dead right.

WHAT MAKES THE F-22 COST SO MUCH?

General MERRILL McPEAK, Air Force Chief of Staff (28 April '93, Senate Appropriations Committee hearing):

"What is required to fight in hostile air space is the question that we tried to answer with the F-22. It has low observability. That means it can penetrate hostile air space, because the trick there is getting by the surface-to-air defenses that are there, not other fighters."

Col. CULCLASURE: So, you're getting a survivable aircraft. You are getting a low maintenance aircraft.

NARRATOR: Ignoring for the moment that today the United States finds itself without significant enemies, the hypothetical advantages of the proposed F-22 aircraft over existing warplanes already in surface boils down to one very expensive thing.

INTERVIEWER: What specific advances does the F-22 offer over its predecessor?

Col. CULCLASURE: Okay. The first and foremost that comes to mind is the stealth technology. The F-22 will incorporate stealth characteristics.

NARRATOR: Put simply, the attraction of stealth technology to war planners in the Pentagon is its supposed capacity to make an airplane hard for enemy radar to detect. So-called "stealthi-ness" is accomplished through a special shape, special materials and the reduction of the heat coming from the plane's engines. For the F-22, the stealth concept is a powerful marketing tool.

ANDY IRELAND: Stealth is not what it has been sold to be.

NARRATOR: As a Florida congressman from 1976 through 1992, Andy Ireland was a long-time member of the House Armed Services Committee. He believes that aircraft equipped with stealth technology, like the F-117 attack planes flown in the Gulf war, are not as invisible as the Pentagon claims.

Mr. IRELAND: The real story I think in stealth is that we've sold ourselves a bill of goods that it is almost a panacea-type weapon. The real truth is that it didn't perform well in the Persian Gulf. It was detected by not only the radar on our own ships quite away away, it needed the jammers and the other kind of equipment around it. By the time that it got there, most of the other radar was knocked out and, quite frankly, it can be detected by low frequency radar.

NARRATOR: A recent study by the National Defense University maintains that technology that will overcome stealth features will likely make stealthy weapons obsolete by the year 2000. The proposed F-22 would not go into service until after the year 2000, so its main selling point, if there is anything to the claims of stealth, may only exist for a very short time.

Stealth technology may soon be obsolete, but education costs are investments that last a lifetime. For the $150 million cost of one F-22 fighter -- a cold war carryover of dubious value to America's defense -- the United States could teach tens of thousands of illiterate Americans to read.

WHO BENEFITS IF THE F-22 IS BUILT?

NARRATOR: The huge sums of money involved in the production of the F-22 advanced tactical fighter guarantee that this plane has powerful political and economic support among military industries and members of Congress, support that cannot be justi-fied for military reasons.

In the aftermath of the cold war, many weapons systems are kept alive for the jobs and profits they bring to communi- ties, not for their military value. For instance, the B-1b bomber program has consumed $28 billion in taxpayers' money, notwith-standing that the entire fleet of 95 planes has been grounded indefinitely for rampant technical failures. At the same time, the United States is building this lemon's "replacement," the B-2 bomber, which will end up costing $45 billion for 20 bombers.

Senator DeCONCINI: Economics drive a lot of military. We've seen that with the Seawolf, we've seen that with SDI, we've seen that with Northrup and the B-2 bomber --

INTERVIEWER: Do we see it with the F-22?

Senator DeCONCINI: And we see it with the F-22 coming from the state of Georgia. It's very clear, very major economical investment there for the next ten to fifteen years of $100 billion, the majority of it going into the Georgia economy, very important to Georgia.

NARRATOR: Lockheed Aerospace, the principal military con-tractor building the F-22 is based in Marietta, Georgia. Georgia is also the home of Senator Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, perhaps the most influential member of Congress when it comes to military issues.

Twenty-six other military contractors, spread across 32 states, stand to benefit economically from the airplane's produc-tion.

Col. CULCLASURE: Naturally, it creates jobs. One old rule of thumb I have heard is, if you have $1 billion worth of expenditure on a system, what you get is basically 10,000 jobs in return.

NARRATOR: Military spending should not be justified on the basis of jobs created. A study by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of Congress, indicated that civilian spending by state and local governments creates more jobs than if the money were spent on the military. For example, by shifting $3 billion from the military, almost 19,000 more jobs would be created in transportation, medical research, coal mining and many other industries. Clearly, tax dollars could be spent more usefully creating jobs, while at the same time improving Americans' education, health care and transportation systems.

Senator DeCONCINI: What we should do is just put it on hold, keep our research warm, in the sense that we could turn it on if necessary.

NARRATOR: For the $100 billion a fleet of 648 F-22's would cost, the United States could fund the Head Start early childhood education program for the next ten years, improve our public schools and send 5 million young Americans to college.

Senator DeCONCINI: I think it's time to sit back and say, wait a minute, let's get our house in order. We're not going to be the formidable only superpower if we don't have an economic base. We cannot afford everything we want anymore, militarily or domestically.

President-elect BILL CLINTON (3 Nov. '92, Election Night, Little Rock AR):

"This election is a clarion call for our country to face the challenges of the end of the cold war and the beginning of the next century."

NARRATOR: The fate of the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter is unclear. During the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton came out in favor of several very expensive weapons which even the Pentagon did not want. These included the Navy's Seawolf attack submarine and the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Candidate Clinton also supported the F-22.

President Clinton calls for the F-22 program to receive $2.2 billion in 1994 alone. And the F-22 is only one of several fantastically expensive aircraft the Pentagon wants to buy.

Senator NUNN (Senate floor):

"The services now have planned over $350 billion worth of new combat aircraft that are on the drawing boards."

NARRATOR: These include the Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18

E & F, designed to attack coastal targets and defend US ships at sea. Estimated total cost: $94 billion. The A/F-X, a proposed attack plane for the Navy. Total estimated cost: $130 billion. And the RAH-66 Commanche, a reconnaissance/attack helicopter for the Army estimated to cost a total of $40 billion.

Despite all the campaign rhetoric about change, President Clinton's proposed military budget does not cancel a single major weapons program. It provides funding for every new tactical aircraft program the Pentagon wants to keep alive.

The decision not to cancel any major weapons has drawn criticism from a variety of sources. The Soviet Union is gone, so we should stop spending money on costly weapons, like the F-22, which we do not need to fight an enemy that no longer exists.

Despite President Clinton's promise to reduce the enormous national debt and restore the country's economic health, the Pentagon is still planning to buy all of these tremendously expensive weapons.

WOMAN-on-the-Street: Times are really hard for a lot of people now and I think they should be utilizing money in a different way and I don't think military spending is number one on the list.

Admiral CARROLL: Yes or no? Up or down? How do you vote on the question of continuing with the F-22? Can we afford it? Do we need it? Or, can we maintain clear air superiority with the F-15's, F-16's and F-18's that triumphed in Desert Storm? A lot rides on the decision by Congress on this issue and we'd like to know how you feel about it here at the Center for Defense Information.

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Eugene Carroll.

[End of broadcast.]