Bush, Tomcat and Security

The F-14 Tomcat, US Navy air superiority fighter (think movie Top Gun) was retired from the US Navy last September. In fact I think I posted about it. Currently, that leaves the Navy with the multi-role FA-18 to protect the carrier force. Everyone knows the F-18 is not as capable an aircraft as the F-14. Also, the F-14 was built to fire the long range AIM-54 Phoenix missile. We can only hope that Iran does not have any Phoenix missiles that are in working condition. Iran happens to have several operational F-14 Tomcats and many that are probably not operational due to lack of spare parts. Wouldn't it be smart not to sell Iran spare parts for the F-14?

Not in Bush world. Sales of spare F-14 parts was just halted last week.

The decision comes as a Democratic senator moves to cut off all Pentagon sales of surplus F-14 parts, saying the military's marketing of the spares "defies common sense" in light of their importance to Iran.

This could just be the "liberal media" slant on things. Nope. Go here to the "We report, you decide" Fox News and read the same thing. Of course the Fox News story omits the fact that it took two Democrat legislators to take care of this problem.