Conferees OK $288-Billion Defense Bill, Keep B-2 Alive

Senate and House negotiators agreed Wednesday on a $288-billion defense authorization bill that would continue production of the B-2 Stealth bomber, while creating confusion over whether two new planes sought by President Bush will be built.

The military programs bill, which is expected to be passed by both houses, would slash Bush’s defense spending request for fiscal 1991 by $19 billion and provide $28 billion less than last year’s Pentagon spending, adjusted for inflation.

The bill would sharply scale back the Pentagon’s “Star Wars” anti-missile program, slow other key weapons programs and more than double the military personnel cuts proposed by Bush. It would create a bipartisan commission to review Defense Secretary Dick Cheney’s proposal to close 43 military bases. And it would continue production of the M-1 tank and development of the V-22 Osprey helicopter/plane, two costly programs that Bush wants to terminate.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said that the legislation worked out by Senate-House conferees responds to “a changing threat” in Eastern Europe and to “a very austere fiscal environment” in the United States.

Despite the differences over particulars, Nunn and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), ranking Republican on the Armed Services panel, expressed optimism that Bush would sign the bill largely because it rejects a House move to end the B-2 program at 15 planes.

At a news conference, the two senators contended that the bill would allow the Pentagon to use $2.3 billion in procurement funds to buy “long-lead” items needed to build two more of the radar-eluding planes, as part of the Pentagon’s plan to buy an eventual 75.

Nunn declared that “the B-2 program is alive and well” and said that the Air Force could order as many more copies as it likes because it would not be specifically prohibited from doing so.

“They (the Pentagon) can build one bomber, they can build two bombers . . . . We do not restrict the number (in the legislation). We take the number out,” he said, alluding to an agreement by conferees to remove the House provision to terminate the program at 15 planes.

On the other hand, House Armed Services Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) later insisted that the B-2 procurement funds would have to be used to cover cost overruns on the 15 aircraft already under construction at Northrop Corp. plants in Pico Rivera and Palmdale, Calif.

Aspin maintained that no additional planes could be built because they have not been specifically authorized in legislation.

Two other congressmen who have led the fight against the B-2, Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) and Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), said that they had received the same legal opinion from the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm.

“If the U.S. Senate and its supporters . . . try to sneak the money back in” for new planes, Kasich said, “this House will pulverize them.”

In any case, Aspin conceded that Northrop would be “fully employed building B-2s in fiscal 1991,” which began Oct. 1.

Approval of the compromise bill means that the issue of whether to terminate B-2 production or expand it will be fought again next year. But, with opposition mounting against the program in both houses, Aspin predicted that no more than 20 planes would be built.

Nunn, a strong defender of the B-2, cautioned that the bomber will face tough going next year if tests of its Stealth technology and flying ability are unfavorable.

“It’s got to prove itself,” he said.

In a move strongly opposed by the Administration, the Senate-House conferees sharply cut funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as “Star Wars,” and imposed limits that probably would bar Bush from deploying the space-based “brilliant pebbles” defense system in the next few years.

The negotiators pared Bush’s $4.6-billion “Star Wars” request down to $2.89 billion, a $900-million cut from last year’s funding. Moreover, the bill directs that research be channeled into four other areas besides “brilliant pebbles,” including work on a limited system to defend against missiles in a situation similar to the Persian Gulf crisis.

“This was the most stressfully debated issue before the conferees,” Warner said, because the Senate-approved limits on research “represented the largest incursion we’ve seen to date by the legislative branch into the authority of the executive branch to manage a program.”

Warner added: “I know that the secretary of defense will be disappointed on SDI, but we (proponents) made the best fight that could have possibly been made.”

In other major provisions, the bill would:

--Reduce the U.S. troop count by 100,000, compared with 38,000 recommended by Bush. Over five years, the cuts would total 425,800 from the current roster of 2.1 million. Nunn predicted that the 300,000 U.S. troops in Europe would be reduced to 75,000 by fiscal 1995.

--Slow production, pending further tests, of such major new weapons systems as the C-17 cargo plane, the A-12 fighter, the Advanced Tactical Fighter, the SSn-21 attack submarine and Army Light Helicopter.

--Deny requested deployment but continue research and development on two mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles--the multiple-warhead MX and the single-warhead Midgetman.

The new policies set out in the authorization bill approved by conferees Wednesday are closely followed in a companion appropriations measure that is nearing passage.

Nunn was asked about remarks by Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.) that it is odd that Congress is going ahead with the B-2 bomber--intended for penetrating Soviet air defenses in a nuclear war--at the same time that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has received the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Gorbachev deserved that prize,” Nunn said. “But he didn’t get it because he’s canceled their bomber and missile programs. The Soviets still have all those under way. We have to wait until that threat changes” before changing the U.S. strategic weapons program.