Wilson Urges Clinton to Build 20 More B-2s

As hundreds of defense workers applauded, Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday urged President Clinton to reverse his opposition to building more B-2 bombers, charging that the commander in chief doesn’t understand the “strategic importance” of the radar-evading aircraft.

Wilson remarks came as the plane’s Los Angeles-based manufacturer, Northrop Grumman Corp., and its allies in Congress press their campaign for funding 20 more of the Stealth bombers, which flew in the Persian Gulf War. The bombers cost the Air Force $750 million apiece.

Congress in 1992 decided to cap production after 20 bombers, which undergo final assembly by Northrop at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale. About 9,000 Northrop employees work on the bombers, including 3,700 in the Antelope Valley. The last B-2 is expected to be finished in 1998.

But backers want more built, arguing that the aircraft--which can fly more than 10,000 miles with a single refueling and present a radar profile the size of a hawk--are essential to maintaining America’s ability to project power in the post-Cold War era.

“It’s time for the Clinton Administration to do what is in the best interest of American national security, and that is keep this aircraft in long-term production,” said Wilson, standing in front of a dark, bat-winged B-2 as he addressed Northrop workers outside their factory.

A White House spokesman said Clinton believes that more bombers are unnecessary and unaffordable, citing a Pentagon study last year that concluded that the existing fleet is sufficient to meet U.S. security needs, even if it had to fight two wars simultaneously.

“Another 20 B-2 bombers are not desired by the Air Force, they are not desired by the Department of Defense and they are not desired by this Administration,” the spokesman said.

The governor, a B-2 supporter since his days as a senator, reiterated arguments by bomber supporters, who are pushing Congress to approve $493 million to keep Northrop assembly lines open and tooled for more bombers.

Wilson said that not manufacturing more bombers will badly compromise the country’s ability to respond to distant crises, warning that the world is “not a safe place” despite the end of the Cold War. He also noted that seven former U.S. defense secretaries favor resuming production of the bomber.

The governor said the need for the B-2 is underscored by the reluctance of some NATO members to permit U.S. combat aircraft to use their air bases.

“United States security should not depend on the whims, political resistance, the internal political divisions of our foreign . . . allies, because sometimes it makes them undependable allies,” he said.

Wilson said he did not “pretend to be indifferent” to the number of California defense jobs at stake in the B-2 debate, saying the state has lost more than 500,000 jobs to military downsizing in recent years, and will lose an additional 45,000 because of further Pentagon cuts this year.

Stopping production at 20 planes, he said, will cost an additional 20,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly linked to the bomber program.

The governor, who flew from Sacramento to Palmdale aboard a Northrop corporate plane, mocked Clinton for mistakenly referring to the Missouri “as an aircraft carrier, rather than a battleship.”

But Wilson proceeded to commit a flub of his own, confusing the B-2 with the Air Force’s much older B-52 bomber as he spoke of the need to upgrade the nation’s aging fleet of long-range bombers.

Wilson opened his speech with a self-deprecating reference to his failed campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

“It’s nice to hear that kind of thing from friends,” Wilson said after he was introduced to loud applause from Northrop workers. “I have recently returned from the presidential wars, [and] I didn’t hear that all the time.

“In fact, there are some comforts to no longer being in that race. I can see the headline when I’d come out here,” he said. “They would have said, ‘Stealth candidate meets Stealth bomber.’ ”