An F-35A takes off from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on March 14, 2014. After getting upgrades, the F-35A is on its way back to Nellis AFB, Nev. (U.S.
Each day, President Joe Biden drags America closer to an international conflict that U.S. forces are unprepared to fight.
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida showed why on Wednesday.
During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Pentagon’s budget, the Fort Walton Beach Republican got the Air Force’s top brass to admit that just 29% of America’s F-35 fighter jets are “fully mission capable.”
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Gen. David Allvin, the service’s chief of staff, initially claimed the actual readiness number for F-35s was 55%.
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Yet when Gaetz confronted them with testimony from the Air Force general over the F-35 program, who put the number at 29%, neither Kendall nor Allvin would dispute it.
“I think people would be surprised that it’s 29%,” said Gaetz.
Gaetz then cited a Government Accountability Office report that asserted the reason the ratio was so low was that the Biden Pentagon had handed over too many of the “sustainment” duties to Lockheed Martin, the maker of the F-35.
Allvin countered that the contract had been given those responsibilities some 20 years ago.
Yet Gaetz questioned why there was no change after the recognition that the current process for ensuring the F-35s readiness was failing.
“It’s failing because the fox is watching the henhouse,” Gaetz said. “The very contractor bilking the taxpayer for this very platform is now in a position where they can’t sustain it.”
Kendall acknowledged that by 2010, when he first became involved in the F-35 program, the Defense Department had agreed to a management program that excluded the Pentagon from having the “intellectual property” to manage the aircrafts’ continued readiness.
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“We are still fighting that problem today,” Kendall admitted.
Gaetz said he appreciated that Kendall had always been honest with lawmakers about what’s happening in the Air Force.
But, he added, “The problem here is the tail is wagging the dog. And it’s not going to get better unless there’s accountability for the fact that the planes don’t fly.”
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