When the defense experts who craft the Pentagon’s notoriously bloated budget do not want to spend money on more B-2 bombers – you should listen. But for Representatives Norm Dicks (D-WA) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA) its in one ear and out the other.

Even though Secretary of Defense William Cohen has stated that the Air Force does not need the planes and an exhaustive study by the non-partisan Institute for Defense Analysis concluded that an additional fleet of B-2’s would be of little utility, Dicks and Hunter have grand plans for the bomber. Dicks and Hunter, chairman of the House National Security Committee’s procurement panel, have agreed that Hunter will include $350 million in the FY98 defense authorization bill as a down payment on nine additional B-2’s.

Supporters of increased funding for the B-2 claim that this allocation of funds would enable the defense contractor Northrop-Grumman to maintain the B-2 assembly line. This would eventually result in a need-based availability of new bombers at a “barga.png” price of $1.5 billion. The truth is that the funding request is part of a plan to build more bombers before the need arises.

The B-2 bomber was conceived at the height of the Cold War to enable the U.S. to dominate and perhaps win a protracted nuclear war. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the B-2 became a bomber without a mission, so Congress halted construction of the $2.2 billion planes at 20 in 1993.

However, Northrop-Grumman has continuously campaigned for more B-2 funding, spending millions of dollars on full page advertisements and TV commercials. During the 1996 presidential campaign, the bomber’s funding became further politicized. Bob Dole held a campaign rally at the B-2 factory in California and promised to build more. President Clinton responded by supporting a $493 funding package to reconfigure a test model to a fully operational version.

Dicks and Hunter’s plan for the beleaguered bomber comes despite further setbacks for the plane. In April B-2 training missions were halted because one plane’s shaft assembly – which connects the engine to a gear box – broke during flight.