Broder’s broadside was only the latest in a stream of extremely negative and wildly inaccurate reporting and opinion that has appeared in the nation’s major newspapers since the investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO), released a report on Aug. 14 that noted problems with maintaining the B–2’s stealthy exterior have resulted in an initial readiness rate well below the Air Force’s prescribed standards.

The New York Times, for example, reported on August 23rd that the stealth bomber “can’t go out in the rain.” A Washington Post editorial—“Turn Back! Raindrops Ahead”—published eleven days later made a similar charge.

None of this might matter very much if House and Senate conferees were not in the process of deciding whether to make a $331 million down payment in the coming fiscal year for nine additional stealth bombers. The House twice has voted in favor of expanding the B–2 fleet from 21 to 30, which the Senate and the White House oppose.

B–2 opponents in both parties repeatedly have criticized the billion dollar bomber as the archetypal Cold War relic. Many Congressional supporters, not surprisingly, come from districts in which the batwinged–shaped bomber carries a large payroll.

Senior US military leaders acknowledge the important contributions the B–2 could make to future wars, but are adamantly opposed to additional purchases if current force structure or other modernization programs must be sacrificed. And yet seven former secretaries of defense have urged the purchase of additional aircraft while the option still exists.

What, then, is one to make of the B–2’s place in American strategy? Is the stealth bomber a Cold War relic or a leap–ahead system well–matched to emerging challenges? And what of the GAO’s recent charge that the bomber may be a hothouse flower?

According to the Air Force, B–2 readiness rates are currently running at around 44 percent, which is 16 percent below the service’s operational goal. While this is disappointing, it is well in line with other aircraft programs at similar stages of development. (The B–2 has been operational for just five months.)

In fact, the B–2’s early readiness statistics are substantially better than those experienced by other recently developed aircraft. The leap–ahead F–117 stealth fighter, which performed so spectacularly during the Gulf War, had a readiness rate of only 24 percent after five months of use. The non–stealthy B–1 bomber, at 19 percent, was even more problem-ridden. The B–2’s readiness rate in its first month of limited operational capability was a “disappointing” 26 percent. The comparable rates for the F–117 and B–1 were 17 and two 2 percent, respectively.

The early production model aircraft on which the GAO based its report never were intended to have the stealth properties of the mature Block 30 B–2. All of the Block 10 and Block 20 models were already scheduled to be upgraded to full Block 30 configuration before the GAO began its research. A few of the earliest model B–2s had their rain–resistant coating improperly applied, which caused the coatings to erode when the aircraft were flown in the rain. The coatings have since been applied correctly and there has been no recurrence of this problem.

Ongoing improvements in stealth maintenance procedures and materials promise to reduce maintenance cycle times at the 509th Bomb Wing, which operates the B–2s, by a factor of 10 or more by the year 2000, when all twenty–one B–2s are brought up to full Block 30 configuration.

Just as last year’s GAO report on the gulf war, which revealed that US smart weapons were a bit less smart than some initially believed, was exploited by some to claim that they weren’t smart at all, the GAO’s latest report has provided ammunition for B–2 critics. But, support for the B-2 came in Sept. 4 testimony from the Pentagon’s director of the Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, Philip Coyle, and the Air Force’s Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Lt. Gen. George Muellner. “There is no basis for saying the B–2 can’t operate in all weather. It is stealthy, even in the rain. It could deploy on a bombing mission today against the most heavily defended targets and totally destroy those targets and return safely,” Coyle said.

None of the problems surfaced in the GAO report are likely to prevent the bomber, as wide as a football field, once it is fully operational, from maintaining its insect–sized radar cross section at readiness rates well above the Air Force’s specified standard.

Maintenance hiccups aside, are additional B–2s essential to American security? If one believes that potential aggressors in 2015 will fight the U.S. in pretty much the same futile way that Saddam Hussein did in 1991, then additional B–2s clearly are unnecessary. Future adversaries, however, could learn from Saddam’s mistakes.

By threatening large–scale cruise and ballistic missile attacks on forward land and sea–based forces, for example, they could delay or even deny the bulk of current US forces—even if modernized as planned—entry into a theater of operations.

A future president’s early strike options could thus be largely limited to stealthy bombers and submarine–launched conventional missiles. The question he or she will then ask is do we have enough of these survivable assets to deny the enemy his strategic aims?

According to a recent study by RAND, Santa Monica, Calif., the answer will be no, unless the House prevails in conference and against the threat of the president’s line item veto.

Compared with the more than $350 billion the Defense Department plans to spend during the next couple of decades on tactical aircraft, which require access to theater bases or aircraft carriers offshore, over the next couple of decades, the $9 billion that the House wants to invest over the next six years for nine more B–2s could be quite a bargain.

What is particularly pernicious is that he way critics are using the GAO’s could have on military innovation. The F–117, which had a readiness rate about half that of the B–2’s at a similar stage in its development, became the cornerstone of Desert Storm’s air campaign, striking with impunity 40 percent of all strategic targets in Iraq while accounting for just 2 percent of total combat sorties flown

Adapting to meet new challenges requires the courage to make hard choices, and the $9 billion required to procure nine more B–2s over the next six years will likely have to come at the expense of other priorities in our $1.6 trillion defense program and worthy nondefense discretionary programs as well.

This pain will be substantially less, however, than it could be if a future adversary makes the leap to a new way of war and America does not.

As they debate the 1998 defense authorization bill, congressional conferees should not be distracted by the GAO’s very preliminary findings about the difficulties of stealth maintenance, or by those who would use the GAO’s report for their own disingenuous ends.

They should ponder instead the record of formerly pre-eminent powers that focused on refighting the last war instead of adapting their force postures to meet new challenges. It is not an encouraging one.