U.S. Air Force weapons budget seen steady

By Andrea Shalal-Esa and Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force procurement budget for fiscal 2008 is likely to hold steady at around $117 billion, Ken Miller, a top Air Force acquisition official told the Reuters Aerospace & Defense Summit on Monday.

The Air Force would also buy C-130J military cargo planes built by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) as part of its extra funding request for fiscal 2007, said Miller, a special assistant to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

The Air Force last week said it asked Pentagon officials for $33.4 billion in extra funding for the 2007 fiscal year that began on October 1, to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and costs related to the "longer war on terror."

The service has already asked Pentagon leaders for $50 billion in extra war funds for fiscal 2008.

Pentagon officials had not yet decided whether to approve the fiscal 2007 request, which would come on top of the Air Force's base budget request of $105.9 billion.

Miller predicted the procurement budget, which includes some Air Force procurement for other services, would "about the same, a little more," in fiscal 2008.

He declined to go into detail of the service's supplemental budget request for fiscal 2007, but said it included some C-130 cargo planes that would be used for a variety of purposes by Air Force Special Operations Command and to reduce the number of Army convoys on the ground.

Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky had no comment on the extra C-130 purchases, but said the plane was performing "exceptionally well" in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Production of Lockheed's C-130J four-engine, heavy-lift cargo planes is due to end in 2008 after the remaining 39 on order are delivered to the military.

Miller had no comment on whether the request included additional F-35 fighter jets, also built by Lockheed, to replace F-16s that have been lost in combat.

Miller said some officials were interpreting the Pentagon's recent decision to include global war on terror costs in the supplemental war funding requests as support for replacing existing airplanes with newer, updated ones.

Miller cautioned that all budget proposals were still being vetted by top defense officials and he did not expect a final Pentagon budget to be sent to the White House until the end of the month, given the change in leadership at the Pentagon.

He also cited some discussion about wrapping war spending costs into the services' base budget, but said that matter had not yet been decided.

Robert Gates, President George W. Bush's nominee to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, faces a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate have said they expect Gates to win speedy confirmation to the post.