Congress Funds Killer Drones the Air Force Says It Can't Handle

An avionics specialist checks out an MQ-9 Reaper before it prepares to fly from Creech Air Force Base, 2008. Photo: U.S. Air Force

The Air Force says it needs to scale back buying its flying deadly robots while it gets enough human beings in place to operate them and interpret the surveillance data they collect. Congress decided that the flyboys might need more cash, just in case.

The Pentagon asked Congress for only around $4 million for the MQ-1 Predator drone and about $1.7 billion for the next-generation MQ-9 Reaper over the next year. The House Armed Services Committee, which on Tuesday finished its version of next year's defense bill (.pdf), decided that wasn't enough for either program. If the committee's version of the bill makes it through the legislative process, the Air Force will get about $23 million more for the Predators, and an extra $180 million for the Reapers.

To be clear, that cash isn't necessarily for extra flying robots, and there are lots of legislative hurdles to overcome before this bill becomes law. The Air Force stopped buying new Predators in 2010 and upgraded to Reapers. Chances are the new Predator cash is for replacement sensors or spare parts. And about $26 million worth of cash for the Reapers, similarly, is for spare parts. But the committee also wants to give the Air Force nearly $159 million for 12 new Reaper planes.

That's not all. The committee also boosted funding for the Hellfire missiles the drones carry ' to $61 million, some $13 million more than the Pentagon asked.

The additional drone cash comes at a strange time for the Air Force's operation of the machines. Over the next five years, the 'combat air patrols' that the drones fly ' teams of up to four Predators or Reapers ' will rise from 61 to 65, with what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called a 'surge capacity' of up to 85. But the Air Force actually asked to cut its drone cash, in order to make sure it's got enough human beings trained to operate the drones ' and, more urgently, get a better handle on the onslaught of video and other surveillance data they collect.

The word from Air Force Secretary Michael Donley is that the Air Force plans on holding the number of Predator and Reaper 'combat air patrols,' or CAPs ' flights of up to four drones at a time ' static for about five years once they hit 65 CAPs, in order to give the humans a breather. It's not clear whether an infusion of extra drone cash will affect that decision.

The drones aren't the only program the House Armed Services Committee is beefing up. It's adding $115 million for 'advanced procurement' of Navy destroyers and $778 million for the Virginia-class submarine ' consistent with the Republican-controlled House's complaint that the Navy isn't building enough ships for its ambitious strategy in the Pacific. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to go even further, vastly expand shipbuilding by as much as $7 billion per year. If Romney has a notion to supersize America's unmanned air force, so far he's kept those plans to himself.