WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week declared the F-22 Raptor, built in Marietta, dead. The Pentagon will buy only four more of the supersonic, super-expensive jets. The death knell had barely sounded before the howls of protest rolled forth from Congress and beyond. Gates, a former intelligence officer and CIA director, was prepared. "My hope," he said Monday at a Pentagon briefing, "is that the members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole."
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), echoing comments from solons across the country and across the political divide, vowed later in the week "to fight as hard as I can" to keep the Raptor -- and 2,000 Georgia jobs -- alive. Chambliss and others want another 60 jets built, enough planes to keep production lines humming through 2014 -- when a new administration, new customers or new conflicts might keep the Raptor flying indefinitely.