Misinformation spread about F-22

It has been said the first casualty in war is the truth. Unfortunately, in the modern political arena we must now expand this maxim to include the defense procurement process. A prime example is the misinformation being disseminated about the F-22A Raptor. If one bases his or her opinion of the F-22 on these inaccurate assertions, it would be natural to conclude the Raptor is the biggest boondoggle since the Edsel. Fortunately, for this and future generations of Americans who will rely on the F-22 to maintain our nation's control of the skies, the truth is far different.

The fact is, the F-22 will be the pre-eminent fighter/bomber for the next 40 years, capable of defeating the air threats of today and tomorrow. What are these air threats? One of the most menacing is, and will remain, the relatively inexpensive advanced integrated air defense system. It is easy, for example, to imagine a nation such as Iran, with its insistence on building nuclear weapons, purchasing the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system. This system makes penetrating hostile airspace extremely difficult, if not deadly, for those aircraft lacking the F-22's advanced stealth technology and sustained supersonic speeds of supercruise engines. Only one western aircraft, the Raptor, will for the foreseeable future combine these decisive technologies, thereby giving it the unique ability to penetrate hostile airspace and hunt and destroy strategic ground targets during the night and day.

The Raptor will accomplish this while simultaneously establishing air superiority. For example, during a recent military exercise in Alaska, the F-22 dispatched 144 adversaries versus the loss of only one aircraft. Once again, the F-22's advanced stealth capabilities and supercruise engines proved decisive. The F-22 also has remarkable avionics that, in addition to collecting intelligence and providing battlespace awareness, enable it to engage aircraft and surface threats long before an enemy can retaliate.

Some might argue these are impressive capabilities, but they do not address the technical and maintenance difficulties described in a recent Washington Post article. To address those allegations, the Air Force has written a rebuttal that is posted on our Senate Web sites. What is striking about this point-by-point rebuttal is the service's explanation as to why six of the points made in the article are false, four are misleading and two are "not true."