|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
B-1 Bomber Recommissioning Would Cost $3 Billion, Pentagon Says
The U.S. Air Force is seeking to modify a congressional effort to restore once-retired B-1 bombers to active service, Inside the Air Force reported today. The long-range bomber was originally designed to deliver strategic nuclear weapons but has been reconfigured now to carry conventional arms (see GSN, Feb. 4). The U.S. Congress appropriated $17 million for fiscal 2004 to begin returning 23 of the bombers to service after they had been retired in 2001 (see GSN, July 14, 2003). During last year’s budget negotiation process, the Air Force resisted the congressional effort, saying it would cost $1 billion to perform the reversal (see GSN, June 2, 2003). Last week, a senior Defense Department official announced that last year’s estimate has now been tripled to $3 billion, according to Inside the Air Force. Of 32 bombers that have been retired, eight were placed on static display and 24 were sent to the Air Force’s mothball center in Arizona. Of those 24, the Air Force placed 10 in “inviolate storage,” where they are kept intact for possible reuse, and the rest are in “excess storage,” where the planes can be cannibalized for parts. The Pentagon official said the Air Force has not decided how to spend the $17 million and will propose program modifications to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a main advocate of unretiring the bombers (Elizabeth Rees, Inside the Air Force, Feb. 6).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
