“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Betrays Impatience with President’s Toy Airplane Antics”

13 March 2007, 0212 EDT

Actually, this picture accompanies news of a leaked memo outlining plans to divert spending for high-tech weaponry, including the F-35, to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice witnesses the signing of the Joint Strike Fighter Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Australia in the Treaty Room of the U.S. State Department in Washington, December 12, 2006. The White House plans to shift $3.2 billion in defense spending – partly from new weapons like the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, a trade publication reported on Monday. (Larry Downing/Reuters)

Part of me thinks this is merely a trial balloon designed to put pressure on Congress to allocate more money to the war. But it wouldn’t be a terrible thing to delay some of these projects–many of which really serve no short-term strategic purpose–to more pressing needs.

Of course, if the Administration really wants to adequately fund the war and ensure another hundred years of US conventional superiority, they could always eliminate a tax cut or two. After all, we are at war and all.