DATE: Wednesday, May 14, 1997               TAG: 9705140496

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   76 lines

WEAPONS OUTRANK TROOPS IN REPORT SOME ANALYSTS ARE CONCCERNED THAT PRIORITIES ARE WRONG

The Quadrennial Defense Review the Pentagon began last fall to assess the nation's security needs has become ``a shootout between the boys and the toys,'' a group of defense analysts charged Tuesday.

``And it looks like the toys have won,'' said John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, referring to the review's apparent conclusion that 60,000 troops should be cut to free up money for new weapons.

Rather than rethink security questions in a world where the United States is the only superpower, the review's authors planned a ``Cold War modernization program,'' that protects defense contractors but may leave troops vulnerable to new threats, said Franklin C. Spinney, a Defense Department program analyst.

The Pentagon has ``money coming out the kazoo,'' Spinney asserted, but is largely spending it on the wrong systems.

Though the report will not be released until Monday, its major conclusions have been leaked to news organizations in recent weeks or foreshadowed in public statements by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and senior military leaders.

Among other things, the review will:

Preserve the ``two-war'' strategy adopted at the start of the Clinton administration, asserting that the U.S. should maintain sufficient forces to win two ``nearly simultaneous'' regional conflicts.

Suggest relatively modest cuts in civilian and uniformed personnel to help pay for fighter jets, ships, missiles, missile defense systems and other advanced weapons.

Cancel no major weapons programs but recommend reduced purchases of two new fighter jets, the Air Force F-22 ``Raptor'' and the Navy F/A-18 ``Super Hornet.'' The review reportedly will suggest cutting the number of F-22s the Air Force buys from the 438 the service wants to about 340 and will propose buying 780 Super Hornets, as opposed to 1,000.

Recommend accelerating the retirement of around a dozen Navy frigates while maintaining a fleet of 12 aircraft carriers and continuing with the development of next-generation carriers, submarines and destroyers.

Suggest two more rounds of base closings, probably in 1999 and 2001.

Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, said the review was driven by a determination of service leaders to find a way to buy more new weapons while overall military spending remains essentially flat.

A goal set by Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to raise weapons purchases to $60 billion a year attained ``almost an aura of holy writ,'' Korb said, and was never seriously examined on its merits.

Spinney, a Pentagon employee for 25 years, was even more critical, assailing the review as the worst planned and executed study he has seen there. Its failure to address persistent accounting problems that keep the military from accounting for billions spent every year is ``an insult to the American people,'' he said.

Spinney, an aircraft programs analyst, has been warning for years of a coming ``train wreck'' as the mushrooming cost of new fighter jets far surpasses the military's ability to buy them.

New planes are so expensive - some estimates for the Raptor put the cost per plane at more than $100 million - that the services will have to extend dramatically the life of jets now in service just to keep squadrons full, Spinney said. Some of today's F-15s may have to fly 40 years or more, a situation Spinney likened to ``buying a Spad in 1918 and retiring it in 1960.''

Rather than invest in such pricey new equipment, Spinney and other critics at a forum convened by the Project on Government Oversight said the services should insist that defense contractors develop planes that are affordable.

At least one of those planes, Spinney asserted, should be a successor for the Air Force's A-10 ``Warthog,'' a slow-flying but heavily armed jet designed to directly support ground troops.

The Air Force is gradually retiring the A-10, a move that will leave the military without a fixed-wing plane dedicated to the close support mission. The Raptor, Super Hornet and a Joint Strike Fighter the Pentagon plans to develop are being designed as multimission planes. KEYWORDS: DEFENSE SPENDING

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu