Obama issues F-22 veto warning

WASHINGTON, July 14 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama has warned Senate leaders he will veto a defense spending bill if it funds more F-22 fighter jets than the Pentagon has requested.

In letters to the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Obama said he would veto the $680 spending bill for next year "if it supports acquisition of F-22s beyond the 187 already funded by Congress."

House and Senate Democrats have bucked Obama in supporting funding for further production of F-22s, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Massachusetts -- represented by Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry -- is home to F-22 contractors, the newspaper noted.

"We do not need these planes," Obama said in letters Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz.

Both Levin and McCain oppose further production of F-22s.

Obama said funding for more of the Cold War era warplanes would "waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with the weapons that they actually do need."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proposed ending several Cold War-era weapons programs and directing the funding for those systems toward weapons and materiel that U.S. military commanders say would be more useful in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congressional Democrats have pushed for $1.75 billion for more F-22s than the Defense Department has requested, the Post said.

Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen also wrote letters to Congress Monday, pointing out that the Pentagon will have about 2,500 modern jet fighters by 2020 even without the extra F-22s, the newspaper said.