USAF on Post-war Iraq Flights

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Air Force Touts Iraq Post-Combat Flights

(AP) U.S. warplanes are running about 150 flights a day inside Iraq to conduct combat operations, provide air support to ground troops and gather intelligence to help crush pockets of resistance by extremists, a top Air Force general says.

Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the vice chief of staff for the Air Force, cited the nontraditional, post-combat flights as one example of how the military has adapted its tactics in the Iraq and Afghan wars to create a flexibility that will be key for future conflicts.

For instance, the Pentagon has experimented with unmanned airplanes armed with conventional weapons previously reserved for piloted aircraft, such as traditional bombs or air-to-air missiles capable of shooting down enemy planes, he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, U.S. Central Air Forces announced from its forward headquarters in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar that a Predator MQ-1 unmanned aircraft killed or wounded an unspecified number of Iraqi insurgents near Balad air base north of Baghdad on April 11. That came one day after insurgents killed one U.S. Air Force member and injured two others in an attack on the base.

The Predator used a Hellfire missile to hit a group of insurgents who were firing mortars at the base, the announcement said. It said a Predator also "struck multiple insurgents" on April 12, but provided no other details besides saying F-16 fighters provided close air support.

With little public attention, Air Force planes also have been used in anti-terror operations from the Horn of Africa to Yemen since the Sept. 11 attacks, the four-star general said Tuesday.

"It is not like classic conduct of warfare," Moseley said. "It's a lot like a sharpshooter sitting on a piece of high ground ... and picking off people or a group of people singularly."

Moseley said groundwork for the new military tactics began to take shape during the mid-1990s combat in the Balkans and came to fruition as the Pentagon mapped plans to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

He said the key to success is vastly improved coordination and communications between Marines, Army soldiers and special forces on the ground and the Navy and Air Force's warplanes, which can be called in for precise strikes within seconds if a valuable target - such as fleeing terrorists or enemy commanders - is identified.

Many times, he said, special operations soldiers on the ground "acted as sensors for us" to detect high-value targets in remote Afghan and Iraqi areas and called in precision strikes.

"A perfect example is our airmen with the special ops on horseback with a laptop and satellite connectivity to the CAOC (Command Air and Operations Center) so that you close in in real time at the speed of the light," he said.

Last week alone, Air Force planes flew more than 750 sorties as Iraqi rebels stepped up resistance during a month in which they have killed more than 100 soldiers and threw in doubt the planned transition of power from the United States to Iraqis this June.

Moseley said that during recent intense fighting between Marines and Iraqi rebels in Fallujah, Air Force F-16s and F-15s and Navy F-14 fighters interchangeably delivered strikes.

"Who would have thought three or four years ago that we would be at this level of jointness, where the battlefield airman is hooked with the land element on the ground and no one even knows the difference between whether it is Navy, Marine or Air Force airplanes that are delivering the effect," he said.

However, Moseley said, the evolving strategy was not without growing pains, citing Operation Anaconda in March 2002, when U.S. forces lost several soldiers and a helicopter during attacks on al-Qaida hideouts in the Shah-i-Kot mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

"We learned some interesting lessons there about orchestration and inclusion in planning that reinforce the notion that it is always better to be inclusive in your planning, and it is always better to have a full joint multidimensional plan," he said.

Moseley also said:

- Two-thousand-pound precision-guided bombs used in Iraq proved accurate enough to hit targets within the range of their 12-foot length.

- The Air Force has tested dropping 80 smaller 500-pound guided bombs in a single pass, with each bomb hitting within 4 feet of its intended target.

- At least 75 percent of current Air Force personnel are now combat-experienced, the highest level since World War II.

Moseley predicted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - which before 2001 were used only for intelligence gathering - will play an increasing role in warfare, allowing military commanders to put flights up for periods of time beyond human endurance and to conduct surveillance with the ability to fire missiles.

CIA and military officials have confirmed they have used an armed Predator to fire air-to-ground missiles and kill al-Qaida figures.

Moseley said the Air Force retrofitted one of its Predators to fire an air-to-air missile that could be used against enemy aircraft, and that it fired once at an Iraqi aircraft shortly before the war last year, startling the enemy pilot.

Moseley said the Pentagon is also retrofitting and testing the next generation of an unmanned aircraft known as the X-45 UCAV to carry small, conventional bombs. He cautioned, however, that unmanned aircraft probably won't save the Pentagon from having to send humans into dangerous combat.


Source 1: Boston Globe
Source 2: Guardian
Source 3: Mercury News
 
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