"Retired Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz has stated in his new memoir that F-22 production was idiotically axed after building less than half the required number so that the flying force could get then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to approve building a new stealth bomber.
...Behind the scenes, Schwartz's predecessor General Mike Moseley "never gave up in his principled attempts to get those 381 F-22s" the book states.
That push ended up getting Moseley fired along with his civilian counterpart, Air Force Secretary Mike Wynn. After the culling, the brass thought that the new bomber was simply too important and that the chances of winning both the F-22 and bomber arguments with Gates, who was staunchly averse to building high-priced weapons that couldn't be used in Iraq or Afghanistan, was next to zero.
...All this is interesting for a number of reasons.
First, it slams home my position that I have stated for years that Gates is largely to blame for the F-22 production debacle, along with a whole slew of near-sighted decisions and calls—in particular, poor handicapping of near-peer adversaries technological abilities and intent.
Discounting the quick rise of China's stealth fighter programs is among the worst calls Gates made..."
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