Posted on 04/21/2008 10:55:00 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday the Air Force is not doing enough to help in the Iraq and Afghanistan war effort, complaining that some military leaders are "stuck in old ways of doing business."
Gates said in a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., that getting the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to Iraq and Afghanistan has been "like pulling teeth."
Addressing officer students at the Air Force's Air University, the Pentagon chief praised the Air Force for its overall contributions but made a point of urging it to do more and to undertake new and creative ways of thinking about helping the war effort instead of focusing mainly on future threats.
"In my view we can do and we should do more to meet the needs of men and women fighting in the current conflicts while their outcome may still be in doubt," he said. "My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield."
He cited the example of drone aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents without risking the life of a pilot. He said the number of such aircraft has grown 25-fold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He said he has been trying for months to get the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, like the Predator drone that provides real-time surveillance video, to the battlefield.
"Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it's been like pulling teeth," Gates said. "While we've doubled this capability in recent months, it is still not good enough."
To push the issue harder, Gates said he established last week a Pentagon-wide task force "to work this problem in the weeks to come, to find more innovative and bold ways to help those whose lives are on the line."
He likened the urgency of the task force's work to that of a similar organization he created last year to push for faster production and deployment of mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored vehicles that have been credited with saving lives of troops facing attacks by roadside bombs in Iraq.
"All this may require rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not," Gates said, referring to so-called unmanned aerial vehicles that are controlled by servicemembers at ground stations.
The military's reliance on unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, according to Pentagon data. The Air Force has taken pilots out of the air and shifted them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.
Gates, who served in the Air Force in the 1960s as a young officer before he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, urged the officers in his audience to dedicate themselves to thinking creatively.
"I'm asking you to be part of the solution and part of the future," he said.
Gates made no direct mention of a series of mistakes and missteps involving the Air Force in recent months, beginning with an episode last August when a B-52 bomber flew from an Air Force base in North Dakota to another in Louisiana with the crew unaware that it was carrying nuclear weapons.
Last month Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne announced that four Air Force nose cone assemblies designed for use with nuclear missiles were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. The error was not verified until shortly before Wynne made the announcement, and the matter is under Pentagon investigation.
Now this is gonna be interesting.
Give the Air Force a mission or two in Iran. That’ll do wonders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gee...maybe its because there are only a handful of those assets left.
Those of us in the US Army never had a problem with the Chair Force. Whenever we had a mission to run they were always happy to give us a ride. They also serve the best box lunches.
This is a perfect example why Clinton or Obama shouldn’t be President of the U.S. The military, in general, would not trust them. They wouldn’t respond to anything they wanted to do. There’s a lot the military can do to thwart a direct order from the President if they don’t trust the person or have little or no respect for them. Would you go into a battle, like Somalia, under another Clinton?
Well whos responsibility is it to unleash the dogs of war???
I’m puzzled by this very public smackdown of one of the service branches.
This is a very serious criticism, and it is unusual for it to be levelled on the USAF’s home turf in such a public fashion.
There must be steam coming out of certain offices in the Pentagon right about now.
“Real pilots” resent having to fly the toys. They can’t log time in their little book to qualify for those cushy airline jobs.
Plus, it is a real pain to get decent tee-times in Iraq-a-stan, and good caddies are real hard to find.
Funny, the AF has been on war footing over Iraq since 1991. Enforcing all those no fly zones over the years has worn out our fleet.
“...they were always happy to give us a ride.”
Tell that to the Special Ops boys down at Hurlburt, son. They’ll have your a$$ for breakfast!
Militant
Gosh, did he really have to go to the press with this? I mean couldn’t he just go to the Secretary of the Air Force and find out what more they can do. I am not in the Air Force but this seems piss poor to me. I would be pretty upset if he did this to the Navy.
You think so? I would like to see how they stack up to me and the rest of my Ranger buddies, the scrolled ones especially (which I am not, unfortunately)
Hey now if the Army did not screw up this war, the Air Force would not be needed. /sarc. Just a return on your post. lol.
Let’s not engage in revisionist history, Buckwheat. You people weren’t flying those missions all by your lonesome.
Any chance this was a pre-emptive smackdown against another election-year campaign on Capitol Hill by the USAF for more F-22s?
First you are going to have to get the pilots out of the bars and off the golf courses. If you want them to fight tell them that a golf course is in danger, they will defend it to the very end. I have two very close friends (AF pilots) that recently retired and both have a handicap in the low single digits.
Not to rag on the Air Force...but I know a young kid in the Air Force, and I saw him one morning with several of his Air Force buddies...not one of them could have been over 120 lbs soaking wet.
Now, on the other hand, the Marines I come across...any one of them could snap in half a handful of the Air Force guys with one hand.
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