Israel and Japan may be clamoring to buy the F-22 Raptor, but that doesn't mean the Pentagon is ready to sell the stealthy fighter. The head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is in charge of military exports, told Reuters there's pretty much no way the Defense Department will allow foreign sales:
Designing an export version of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research radar-evading F-22 Raptor could cost more than $1 billion and be "prohibitively expensive" for any would-be foreign buyer, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
"If (export) were to be considered, which it's not, it essentially would have to be redesigned, rebuilt, retested and then go into production," Kohler, who oversees government-to-government arms sales, told Reuters in a brief interview.
Any redesign, Kohler said, would require degrading the aircraft's capabilities and making them tamper-proof to keep the technology exclusive -- a process he said would take years.
"This airplane was built to give us an edge way into the future, and that's why it's not exportable."
The issue matters to Lockheed and its F-22 partners -- Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research and United Technologies Corp.'s (UTX.N: Quote, Profile, Research Pratt & Whitney unit -- because overseas sales could extend the production line beyond 2011, when the last of the 183 Raptors currently planned is due to be sent to the U.S. Air Force.
There's clearly some disagreement on the issue. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, on a trip to Israel, told the Jerusalem Post that the U.S. would consider selling the F-22: "There is no stronger relationship than with Israel," Cohen told the Jerusalem Post. "There could be circumstances that that level of technology would be released to Israelis." And Japan, in the meantime, also seems to think the administration is sending them positive signals about the F-22.
