Inouye: F-22 might still be sold abroad

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-HI, is keeping hope alive for the possibility that the U.S. might be able to export the F-22 fighter plane.

Despite that the Senate voted to end production of the planes and the administration has worked hard to ensure that no new planes will be built, Inouye, who has led the charge for exporting the plane, says there might still be a way.

"It depends on whether the potential buyers, Australia, Israel, and Japan, are willing to do what's necessary to make it happen," Inouye told The Cable in an interview.

He said those countries would have to commit to paying for the plane and also paying for the costs of refitting it to remove sensitive technologies the U.S. doesn't want to share.

Conventional wisdom is that F-22 exports are a dead issue, because there's no active drive to repeal the Obey amendment, which bars export of the plane, and because the line is now set to shut down after 187 planes are built.

But Inouye said that he would argue that a scaled-down F-22 might be able to get past the legislative language.

"You can't ignore that," he said about the prohibition, "But this would be different from the Obey amendment. This would be an unclassified version."

Inouye leads the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, which put language in its bill to encourage the Air Force to continue working on the research needed to develop an export version.

"The committee urges the Air Force to start this effort within the funds appropriated in Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force, for the F-22 aircraft," the committee's report stated.

Inouye's comments directly contradict Tuesday statements by the head of Pacific Command Adm. Timothy Keating, who said the Obey amendment was a dealbreaker.

"The Japanese would like to buy the F-22, but we're not going to sell it to them," said Keating.

Japanese officials are still talking about their desire to buy the plane, something Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell will probably discuss with them on his trip there this week.

The idea of exporting the F-22 suffered another setback this week when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said he didn't want to divert Air Force resources to the effort.

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