WASHINGTON — Debate over how the Pentagon will fund President Bush's troop surge for the war in Iraq may jeopardize money slated for new Air Force planes scheduled for Hill Air Force Base.

The House Democrats proposed cutting money to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and other planes in their Iraq war budget plan to help pay for the troop surge, and the Defense Department is said to be considering the same thing.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, whose district includes the base, said the Democrats included the cut in their plan released Thursday but he has not been able to confirm what the Defense Department is considering concerning the planes. A call to the Air Force was not returned, but Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a House Budget Committee hearing Tuesday that some supplemental funds may go to fund the troop surge, according to media reports.

Regardless of who wants to cut the planes, any delay in developing the new technology is not good for the country, Bishop said.

"We are taking a really dangerous gamble with our future," he said.

The Air Force announced in October it would begin an environmental analysis on Hill Air Force base to house operational squadrons for the new joint strike fighter F-35 Lightning II, the replacement for the F-16s, which will eventually be phased out.

The first plane could have arrived by 2009 with up to 24 going to the Utah base.

The administration initially wanted to order two planes at first with more to be added later.

Any cut to the budget would eliminate those planes. Bishop said putting them off now will only delay them longer in the future while other countries, such as China or Russia, continue to develop their planes.

"We have got to get a startup program going," he said.

Bishop met with Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff this week, who talked of "recapitalization," where older technologies are phased out as newer ones come in, but Moseley did not know specifically about plans for the new planes.

---

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com