RUMMY ON A ROLL:

Pentagon Says It Plans to Kill Copter Program (LESLIE WAYNE, 2/24/04, NY Times)

The decision ends a program that began in 1983 and at a cost of $8 billion had yet to produce a single operational craft. Moreover, the Comanche, an armed reconnaissance helicopter, was designed for operations against Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies and has been overtaken by the Army's need for lighter and more flexible aircraft to fight terrorists and guerrillas.

"It's a big decision," said Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff. "We know it's a big decision. But it's the right decision."

The cancellation must be approved by Congress when it reviews the Pentagon's budget for the 2005 fiscal year, which contains allocations for the Comanche. But many Congressional aides say that the helicopter program lacks widespread support in Congress that many other weapons have and that the Pentagon may not have a difficult time scrapping it.

In a Pentagon briefing, General Schoomaker, along with acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee, said that ending the program would free up money for other Army aviation programs, mainly a modernization of the Apache attack helicopter now in combat use, along with more purchases of Blackhawk helicopters and continued development of drones.

Behind this decision is also a realization by the Army that the Comanche program did not fit in with the desire of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the administration to transform the military by eliminating outdated weapons programs and substituting newer technologies.

Remember the spate of stories around a month ago about how Secretary Rumsfeld had lost his mojo? His radical transformation of the military continues, during the largest troop rotation in human history, with American troops deployed pretty nearly everywhere. Pretty good for an old guy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 24, 2004 9:28 AM