The markup of the Senate version of the bill is underway in the Armed Services Committee. A floor vote in the House is expected tomorrow.

As Volsky observes, the compromise enshrined in the amendments would punt implementation of the repeal until after the Working Group issues its guidance. But I’ve been hearing for days that key Pentagon leaders, despite Defense Secretary Gates’ begrudging support for the legislation, were embittered by the White House’s Monday pledge to LGBT activists to acquiesce to the legislative push. Regardless of the amendment’s substantive respect for the Working Group’s timetable, those leaders thought that the Working Group represented a mechanism for overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with maximum military buy-in and minimal disruption to wartime operations. (Of all the service chiefs, only Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, opposes overturning the ban on open gay service.)

The chiefs’ opposition indicates that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” fight has fallen into in a briar patch of acrimony, where substantively small differences appear massive due to injured pride and perceived disrespect.

Vice President Biden

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

General James Jones, National Security Advisor

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

General George W. Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army

General James T. Conway, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations

General Norton A. Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force

Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor

John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security

Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Gates went on the attack against Pentagon “business as usual” yesterday:

“If we can’t get this right, what on earth can we get right?” Mr. Gates said in an acerbic, sometimes withering speech to the Economic Club of Chicago. “It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual.” From his point of view, that means overbuying weapons for wars the nation is unlikely to fight.

Parts of the plane are built in more 40 states, so it’s no surprise that even progressive senators from Massachusetts like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry don’t want to close the production line during a massive recession. What’s noteworthy is that Lockheed Martin, the principal F-22 manufacturer, doesn’t appear to be fighting the cut so hard. Lockheed also has a huge piece of the Joint Strike Fighter, Gates’ preferred replacement (to oversimplify things a bit) for the F-22, so it makes money either way. More Gates:

[T]he F-22, designed for cold-war aerial combat, has become the poster plane for each side. Mr. Gates argued to the economic club that it was a “niche, silver-bullet solution” for only a few potential situations, specifically “the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet,” and that the cheaper F-35, which is to start production in 2012, is a more versatile fighter. The F-22’s supporters say it not only provides jobs but also ensures American dominance of the skies.

Anyway: the vote on the F-22 is expected to come soon.

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Find out on May 21, when Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to a fresh committee release.

Gates didn’t mind throwing his own elbows. The 187 number “was based on input from combatant commanders who are actually going to have” to use the planes in combat, and “discussion with the Air Force leadership.” His budget increases the buys for unmanned aerial vehicles so that neither the F-22 nor the F-35 will be “the only aircraft in the attack air arsenal,” as the “only defense surf-air-missiles is not something that has a pilot in it.” And right now, the United States has 1000 “fifth-generation aircraft” compared to China’s 300, a gap that “gets even bigger” when projecting out to 2025.  The idea that a 700-plane lead over China isn’t sufficient air dominance “seems to me to be unrealistic.” Also, the “first training squadron for the F-35 at Elgin Air Force Base” is on track for 2011. Aside from that, Gates thinks Chambliss’ criticisms have merit.

Chambliss is one thing, though, and Schwartz is another. The way Chambliss framed his interactions with the Air Force chief — they’ve been exchanging letters and having private meetings, and Schwartz will testify in the near future on the defense budget — made it sound like Schwartz is unimpressed with Gates’ instruction that “I don’t want to see any guerrilla warfare on these programs.” It’s a thin line between budget subterfuge on the Hill and an honest military assessment for a need for expanding the F-22. Also worth remembering is that Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said last month that the service chiefs and the combatant commanders  “uniformly endorsed the termination of the F-22 at the number we all agreed on, the 187 [planes] and the transition to the F-35.” If Chambliss is presenting Schwartz’s position correctly — and Schwartz grudgingly endorsed the cap in an op-ed recently — that doesn’t sound particularly true.