Pentagon Review Insists B-2, C-17 Planes Are Essential : Defense: Secretary Cheney will be briefed on the analysis. If he agrees, he will go to bat for the weapons despite fierce opposition in Congress.

Senior Pentagon management officials plan to recommend that the United States proceed with production of the B-2 Stealth bomber and the C-17 transport aircraft and continue work on two futuristic fighter-bomber aircraft, defense officials said Monday.

At the same time, however, they are expected to offer Defense Secretary Dick Cheney options for trimming the B-2 and C-17 program in light of pressure to respond to changes in the East Bloc and new fiscal constraints.

The B-2 is being built at the Northrop Corp.’s Palmdale plant, and the C-17 at McDonnell Douglas Corp.’s Long Beach plant.

The Pentagon is nearing completion of its sweeping review of the four weapons systems, which collectively account for more than $200 billion in planned expenditures. Cheney is scheduled to receive briefings on the review, which he ordered in early January, on Wednesday.

Cheney is expected to make his decisions on the review’s findings by next week. If he accepts the review’s conclusion that the projects are essential, he would give them a major boost despite intense opposition in Congress.

According to published reports confirmed by defense officials, the review has concluded that changes in the Soviet Bloc have not undercut the military’s basic need for the $70-billion Stealth bomber program and the $37.5-billion C-17 cargo plane, as well as for the Air Force’s and Navy’s future-generation warplanes.

However, in his briefing to Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Donald J. Atwood is expected to outline options to delay or scale-back production programs for the B-2 and C-17. Both are already in production but face uphill battles on Capitol Hill.

The review also reaffirms an earlier finding in which the military said it needs the Air Force advanced tactical fighter and the Navy A-12 attack aircraft, according to reports published in the authoritative defense industry publications “Aviation Week and Space Technology” and “Defense News.”

The review panel’s conclusion that the military rationales for the planes have not changed is certain to spark intense controversy in Congress. Lawmakers who are eager to reap a “peace dividend” from shifts in Eastern Europe have said the Pentagon can now cancel some of its costliest initiatives, including the B-2.

However, if Cheney adopts the reviewers’ options for scaling back the programs, he might blunt the growing congressional movement to halt the B-2 after Northrop builds the 16 aircraft for which funds already have been approved.

The results of the “Major Aircraft Review” reflect the widespread reluctance among Pentagon officials to declare the military changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as irreversible and to scale back defense programs accordingly. Cheney, who is one of the Bush Administration’s leading skeptics toward the Soviet Union, has argued fervently against major program cancellations in the face of changes throughout the Soviet Bloc.

In a recent speech, Cheney said that as a result of the review, “we may end up modifying the (B-2) program itself in terms of the rate at which we buy aircraft or the total number, total size of the buy.” The Air Force maintains that it needs 132 B-2 bombers, at about $530 million each, to accomplish its missions in case of nuclear war. Under congressional orders, however, the Pentagon is investigating the costs and consequences of producing between 33 and 99 of the bomber aircraft.

At a recent meeting with reporters, John A. Betti, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, said that the review has been designed to offer Cheney a “menu of options.” Betti, who has largely guided the review, said that a group of fewer than 100 Defense Department officials has gone “back to ground zero, if you will, and (is) thoroughly evaluating requirements.

“It is clear in all our minds that we’re not going to stick with everything we started with,” Betti added.

But while Betti said that cancellation of any of the programs is “always available” as an option to Cheney, defense officials said that cancellation will not be one of the options the review committee will offer the defense secretary.

That is largely because the Defense Intelligence Agency and the review group’s senior policy-maker, Paul Wolfowitz, have not significantly changed their assessment of current or future Soviet military capabilities.