Panel gives Air Force tanker lease deal a mixed review

The Air Force's plan for an unprecedented lease of 100 Boeing 767 airliners to begin replacing its aging airborne refueling aircraft drew a mixed reception at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.

Michael Wynne, acting Defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said there is a "consensus" in the Pentagon on the need to begin replacing the oldest KC-135 aerial tankers "as soon as possible."

Wynne conceded that the estimated $20 billion lease plan, which includes buying the aircraft after six years, is more expensive than buying the planes. But he said leasing is preferable because it provides the tankers sooner and does not disrupt other planned aircraft acquisition programs.

Marvin Sambur, the Air Force's acquisition executive, emphasized how important the tankers are to air-power intensive U.S. military operations, such as Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the increasing difficulty in keeping the KC-135s flying.

"Our national security strategy is unexecutable without air refueling tankers," Sambur said.

Sambur added that the oldest KC-135s are about 43 years old, are being ravaged by extensive corrosion, and require more than a year in aircraft maintenance depots to repair.

Leasing the new KC-767s would provide the first aircraft three years earlier than buying and supply all 100 tankers by 2011, five years earlier than otherwise could be done, he said. The alternative proposal, to put new engines in the oldest KC-135s, does not solve the problem of corrosion, Sambur insisted.

The Air Force said the lease-to-buy plan would cost only 1 percent more than buying, which would require $11 billion more for procurement over the next six years than the Air Force expects to receive.

But the General Accounting Office disputed the Air Force's statistics on the readiness of the existing tankers, reporting that the KC-135s generally meet the goal of 85 percent mission-capable. GAO official Neal Curtin complained that the Air Force has not provided enough data to allow the agency to compare the true cost of the lease plan to the cost of buying.

Although the House Armed Services Committee tentatively approved the tanker lease plan in its version of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, it was not clear from the hearing whether the committee would give the Air Force the solid approval it needs.

Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., did not indicate any position on the lease, but pressed the Air Force and GAO to give the committee the information to allow it to compare that with buying. But Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., whose panel held an earlier hearing on the tanker issue, said the Air Force has not made a case for the lease plan.