Tomorrow's scheduled meeting at the Pentagon between U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Bill Jeffrey, the U.K. Defence Ministry's permanent secretary, was intended to produce a “statement of principles” to facilitate sharing technologies and secrets with Britain to give it means to maintain and upgrade its notional JSF fleet independent of the United States.

That agreement, however, is not likely to be reached this week. Sources involved in the negotiations -- who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing deliberations -- said the discussions on the statement of principles broke down earlier this week.

One Pentagon official, apparently seeking to dampen hopes for the outcome of the England-Jeffrey appointment, said, “We have no expectations one way or another about tomorrow's meeting.”

Another official expressed confidence the two sides, with more time, will resolve the outstanding differences, noting that the June 15 date was simply a target by which both nations hoped to conclude an accord. “I'm not despairing that we're not going to come up with an agreement,” said the official.  

At issue, sources said, are four technology areas that British would like greater access too than the Defense Department, at this juncture, is prepared to made available. The Ministry of Defence is interested in securing access to technologies that will enable it to maintain its aircraft without relying on the United States of U.S. defense contractors. Officials involved in the discussions declined to identify the areas.

Defense and aviation analysts, however, said sticking points are likely British access to: low-observable -- or stealth -- technology; the software source code underpinning the aircraft whose operations are driven by immense computing power; details of the flight control software; and a possible agreement for follow-on development of aftermarket capabilities that British defense industry could manufacture and market around the world.

Sources familiar with drafts of the “statement of principles” describe it as a document that deals “very broadly” with issues and is slated to be accompanied by appendixes that provide further detail on transfer of particular technology areas.

The $276 billion F-35 JSF program, the largest weapon system program in history, includes eight other international partners. The United Kingdom is the largest foreign participant both in terms of investment in developing the aircraft and in pledges to buy the fighters. The Defense Department's reluctance to provide key technologies -- particularly critical software code -- to Britain, however, has earned deep resentment and threats earlier this year from London to withdraw from the fighter-jet program.

“There is genuine concern on the British side that the process is bogged down at the bureaucratic level,” said Richard Aboulafia, a defense aviation expert for the Teal Group in Fairfax, VA. “They run the risk of not getting anything like what they want.”

President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair on May 26 issued a joint statement in Washington, resolving to iron out this long-standing disagreement.

“Both governments agree that the U.K. will have the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ, and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the U.K. retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft,” the two leaders said in a statement.

That statement set in motion a two-week flurry of activity between Defense Department and Ministry of Defence officials to draft a “statement of principles” that has apparently stalled.

While this agreement deals primarily with technical issues, its conclusion is viewed as essential to winning political support in the United Kingdom for committing in December to the next stage in the JSF program: procurement.

“If there is no agreement tomorrow it just raises the tension level and continues to raise the pressure,” said Pierre Chao with the Center for International and Strategic Studies and co-author of the recent report, “Trusted Partners: Sharing Technology Within the U.S.-U.K. Security Relationship.”

“I don't want to be overly dramatic and say that if there is no agreement that the whole deal is off because, there is still time. But you are really beginning to run out of running room,” Chao said.