BALKAN PEACE TREATY : Air Force Balks at Sending Blackbird to Bosnia : Military: U.S. commander requests spy plane, but Pentagon says craft is obsolete.

As 20,000 U.S. troops head to Bosnia on a controversial peacekeeping mission, the Air Force has ignored requests by top U.S. military commanders in Europe to send the SR-71 spy plane to gather intelligence there, according to Air Force and congressional sources.

In a bitter bureaucratic and political battle that apparently is leaving a gap in intelligence operations in the field, the Air Force has stalled on requests for intelligence flights by the SR-71. Air Force and congressional sources believe that the Pentagon is refusing to use the SR-71 out of pique over being ordered by Congress to bring the plane out of mothballs, where it was put in 1990.

The manned spy plane, nicknamed the Blackbird and built by Lockheed Martin, was ordered out of retirement by Congress last year over the sharp objections of the Air Force, which insisted that the plane was obsolete and too expensive to operate.

Defense officials also believe that they have plenty of alternatives: spy satellites, the U-2 manned spy plane and newer aircraft, such as the Joint Stars radar plane and pilotless drones. All of these aircraft and satellites are expected to be called to service in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The request for the SR-71 in the Balkans was made by the staff of Gen. George A. Joulwan, commander of the U.S. European Command and head of the Bosnia peacekeeping mission. In a classified memo, Joulwan’s staff asked the Air Force about the availability of the SR-71 and expressed interest in it for flights over Bosnia.

Commanders in two other regions--the Pacific Command and the Southern Command, which handles Latin America--also have asked for the spy aircraft, sources said.

When Joulwan’s staff members asked for the SR-71, they were told by the Air Force that the aircraft was not ready for deployment. Yet sources said that was largely because the Air Force was refusing to provide enough funding to repair the aircraft and train crews.

The Air Force has turned back requests for the aircraft at the same time that top Pentagon officials have publicly insisted that no military commanders want it.

On Thursday, an Air Force spokeswoman again expressed doubt that any military officials are sincerely interested in using the aircraft. She argued that it is not needed now because of its high operating costs and because other U.S. spy craft already meet the military’s intelligence needs.

Joulwan’s staff was given use of all the other spy craft when they requested the SR-71. But the U-2 and the pilotless drones lack the SR-71’s ability to fly directly over heavily defended hostile territory without risk of being shot down.

The 30-year-old SR-71 remains a technological marvel. It is the fastest aircraft in the world and is nearly invulnerable to antiaircraft missiles.

With a shove from Congress, it went back on active duty in October after a renovation program, and it is now stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

But it has not been used for a single intelligence-gathering operation since its reactivation.

“They think if they use it once, they will never get rid of it,” one congressional source said. “Once its use and its intelligence value becomes clear to the commanders in the field, the Air Force won’t be able to turn them off.”

Air Force officials have spent just 60% of the funding provided by Congress for the program, according to sources. That has prevented the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, the contractor on the program, from readying the planes as fast as it could.

Congress originally ordered that two SR-71s be reactivated, but so far one aircraft is ready to perform missions; the other continues to have mechanical problems, including fuel leaks.

A Lockheed spokesman said there is little doubt that the firm could have speeded up the reactivation had it received additional funding.

Under Air Force regulations, the SR-71 is not allowed to perform missions until both aircraft are ready. So when the military commanders began to make written requests to Air Force reconnaissance officials about its availability in October, they were told that the fleet was not yet operational.

As a result, the military commanders did not make official requests to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which has the authority to order the SR-71 into action.

The slow funding may also have been at the root of a recent incident in which the SR-71’s fuel pumps were installed improperly, forcing a NASA test pilot to make an emergency landing. NASA pilots are testing the reactivated planes for the Air Force.

NASA spokesman Don Haley confirmed that an SR-71 had to abort a flight and land at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas as a result of fuel transfer problems. He said the plane was fixed and flew back to Edwards the following day.

“The Air Force figures if they slow-roll this program long enough, Congress will get tired of waiting and support will dry up,” said a military official who supports the program. “The Air Force is making a mockery of this program.”

In Congress, the plane’s supporters are growing impatient. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the plane’s powerful champion in the Senate, has continually prodded the Pentagon about using it in Bosnia.

He was told by Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that its use would be left up to Joulwan. If Joulwan wanted the SR-71, he would have it, Shalikashvili told Byrd.

But now, Byrd is angry that the Air Force has turned away requests for its use, sources said.

“Sen. Byrd is getting to the point where he is going to go to the Air Force and say: ‘What the hell is going on?’ ” a congressional source said. “It is quite amazing, but the Air Force is bound and determined not to let” the SR-71 become operational.