Huckabee Highlights B-52 Bomber In GOP Debate

04:20

August 07, 2015

A B-52 bomber flys over the track during pre-race activities prior to the start of the Sylvania 300 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on September 25, 2011 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

At last night's Republican presidential debate, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said the U.S. has decimated its military and cited the B-52 bomber as an example.

"We’re flying B-52s," he said. "The most recent one that was put in service was November of 1962. A lot of the B-52s we’re flying, we’ve only got 44 that are in service, combat ready, and the fact is, most of them are older than me. And that’s pretty scary.”

Defense policy expert Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations joined Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd to fact check Huckabee's comments.

"It's important to recognize that these are not literally the same airplanes that rolled out of the factory floor in the 1960s. They've been modernized and updated a lot," Biddle said. "So given that they're periodically updated and modernized, the Air Force thinks that they can stay flying for quite a while longer, a couple more decades, perhaps."

Guest

Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This segment aired on August 7, 2015.