The Boston Globe April 1, 2003
US May Face Shortage Of Smart Bombs
By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff
A smart-bomb shortage looms if the war in Iraq drags on for several months, military analysts say, and the Bush administration has already taken steps to boost the supply of weapons, such as the Tomahawk cruise missile and other precision ordnance.
In its supplemental budget request last week, the White House sought up to $3.7 billion to replenish the munitions fired in Iraq. In testimony to Congress on March 27, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld gave a higher number, $7.2 billion, to replace "key munitions being expended in the course of the conflict."
Many of those weapons are brand-new designs only recently in production, so no large stockpiles exist. Meanwhile, they're being expended rapidly against fixed targets in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Coalition forces have fired more than 700 Tomahawk cruise missiles and dropped more than 8,000 precision- guided bombs since the war began, Major General Stanley McChrystal said yesterday in Washington.
Pentagon officials have confirmed estimates that it began the war with 30,000 of its latest smart bomb, a Boeing Co. weapon known as the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, but officials won't comment on the number of Tomahawks in the US inventory. The Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank, estimates there were 3,500 Tomahawks in the prewar supply, though these long-range weapons are becoming less important as US forces approach Baghdad.
US defense officials won't say exactly how many weapons the United States has on board aircraft carriers and at airfields in the Middle East.
But Robert Sherman, a conventional- weapons specialist for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said the question must weigh on war planners' minds. If the war lasts two more weeks, the supply of precision weapons "won't be a problem," Sherman said, "but if it lasts two more months, then we could have a problem."
Supplies of the JDAM ran low in Afghanistan, for instance, partly because the weapons, which cost $30,000 apiece, were so effective that commanders used them over and over.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington research group, compared the war in Iraq to the last two actions, in Kosovo and Afghanistan, where supplies of some precision weapons ran low. In each conflict, US forces dropped about 20,000 bombs, compared with some 250,000 during the Gulf War of 1991, he said.
"If this war becomes much more than Kosovo or Afghanistan, then the JDAM inventory might start to become an issue," he said. Also, some inventories must be set aside in case of a threat from North Korea, he said.
Questions about the number of bombs the United States has on hand are part of a larger policy debate about the total size of the force invading Iraq, said Baker Spring, military analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Spring said he was not concerned that the military will run short. "If you look at the dramatically higher number" of precision-guided munitions being used, as opposed to "dumb" bombs, Spring said, "I don't think they would be doing that unless they thought the supply line was adequate to support that level."
Many defense contractors received large new orders after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But a longer Iraqi war could test the industry's ability to ramp up production. For example, Boeing produces about 2,400 JDAM guidance kits per month at a factory near St. Louis. The kits are attached to dumb bombs already in the inventory. That is a replacement rate of about 80 JDAMs per day, much smaller than the rate of 1,000 bombs per day some scenarios of the "shock and awe" bombing strategy require.
In its supplemental budget request last week, the Office of Management and Budget spelled out various Pentagon requests that could include several systems made by Raytheon Co. of Lexington, such as the Joint Standoff Weapon glider-bomb, the Patriot missile-defense system, and the Javelin antitank infantry missile.
But Raytheon and other defense contractors don't expect a financial bump from any new orders, because they are relatively small. "It's hundreds of millions of dollars of work in the context of tens of billions of dollar companies," said Christopher Mecray, a defense industry analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York. Also, government-owned factories make much of the basic ammunition, such as bullets and grenades.
Raytheon spokesman James Fetig said the company hasn't received new orders for munitions for the war.
Many weapons can take years to produce, he added. For example, it takes 12 to 18 months to produce the Tomahawk cruise missile at Raytheon's plant in Tucson.
The United States still has a large stockpile of laser-guided bombs, about 100,000 according to the Center for Defense Information. Though they can't penetrate thick clouds with much accuracy, they could see more action as the JDAMs are used up.
Before Congress, military officials have said their supplies are adequate, but need to be replenished. Despite increases in production, a long conflict with Iraq will reduce the Navy's inventory of precision-guided weapons, "potentially including the Tomahawk land-attack missile," Admiral William J. Fallon, vice chief of naval operations, said at a Congressional hearing March 18.
Depending on the length of the war, he said, "it may be necessary" to continue production of these weapons at maximum capability."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. A US Navy ordnance handler checked the nose of a laser-guided 500-pound bomb amid 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs March 21 on the USS Kitty Hawk. / AFP PHOTO / LEILA GORCHEV 2. The Pentagon could request several defense systems made by Raytheon Co. of Lexington, such as the Patriot missile (above). / AP FILE PHOTO / RICHARD PIPES
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