Committee seeks to scale back Boeing deal

? The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee asked the Pentagon on Thursday to consider scaling back a widely criticized, multibillion-dollar plan to lease refueling tanker planes from Boeing Co.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said he wanted the Pentagon to explore whether it would be better to lease 25 of the planes, instead of the 100 planned, and buy the remaining planes through normal acquisition procedures.

The Air Force’s leasing plan was criticized at the hearing by the last of four congressional committees that have to approve the arrangement.

Warner noted that the leasing costs would soar in the next decade and told Bush administration officials, “This thing will suck the life’s blood right out of the Department of the Air Force.”

He planned to send a letter to the Pentagon asking that it analyze the alternative of 25 planes, said John Ullyot, a spokesman for the senator.