Promoted by Steven D.
Building up Air Force strike capabilities for an attack on Iran? DOD is not granted funds to prepare an adventure against Iran, so just increase your Air Force and Navy capabilities in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq – Away from the headlines and debate over the “surge” in U.S. ground troops, the Air Force has quietly built up its hardware inside Iraq, sharply stepped up bombing and laid a foundation for a sustained air campaign in support of American and Iraqi forces.
Squadrons of attack planes have been added to the in-country fleet. The air reconnaissance arm has almost doubled since last year. The powerful B1-B bomber has been recalled to action over Iraq.
“Night before last we had 14 strikes from B-1 bombers. Last night we had 18 strikes by B-1 bombers,” Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said approvingly of air support his 3rd Infantry Division received in a recent offensive south of Baghdad.
Statistics tell the story: Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first six months of 2007, a fivefold increase over the 86 used in the first half of 2006, and three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data. In June, bombs dropped at a rate of more than five a day.
The greatest impact of the “air surge” has come in close air support for Army and Marine operations.
U.S. airmen from the 332nd Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron repair a F-16 Falcon at Balad Air Base, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The Air Force has been quietly building its Iraq presence during the 'surge' in U.S. ground troops. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo)
The Navy has contributed by stationing a second aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, and the reintroduction of B1-Bs has added a close-at-hand “platform” capable of carrying 24 tons of bombs.
Those big bombers were moved last year from distant Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to an undisclosed base in the Persian Gulf. Since February, with the ground offensive, they have gone on Iraq bombing runs for the first time since the 2003 invasion.
As chronicled in the Air Force’s daily summaries, more and more pilots are getting the “cleared hot” clearance for bombing runs, usually with 500-pound bombs. In recent Army operations north of Baghdad, for example, Air Force planes have struck “factories” for makeshift bombs, weapons caches uncovered by ground troops and, in one instance, “several houses insurgents were using as fire positions.”
Iraq Body Count, a London-based, anti-war research group that monitors Iraqi war deaths, says the step-up in air attacks appears to have been accompanied by an increase in Iraqi civilian casualties from air strikes. Based on media reports, it counts a recent average of 50 such deaths per month.
The Air Force itself does not maintain such data.
The demand for air support is heavy. On one recent day, at a briefing attended by a reporter, it was noted that 48 requests for air support were filled, but 16 went unmet.
“There are times when the Army wishes we had more jets,” said F-16C pilot Lt. Col. Steve Williams, commander of the 13th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, a component of Balad’s 379th Air Expeditionary Wing.
“ISR” work in Iraq — intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
In addition, the Air Force is performing more “ISR” work in Iraq — intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “We have probably come close to doubling our ISR platforms the past 12 months,” said Col. Gary Crowder, a deputy air operations chief for the Central Command.
Those proliferating reconnaissance platforms include Predator drones, high-flying U2s and AWACS, the technology-packed airborne warning and control aircraft, three of which returned to the Persian Gulf in April after three years’ absence.
The F-16Cs and other attack planes also do surveillance work with their targeting cameras, keeping watch on convoy routes, for example. By Oct. 1, Crowder said, all squadrons will have “ROVER” capability, able to download real-time aerial video to the laptop computers of troops on the ground — showing them, in effect, what’s around the next corner.
At sea (NNS) — The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 1 departed Naval Station Norfolk for a regularly scheduled deployment July 7 in support of the global war on terrorism.
USS Enterprise
Senate and House and it looks to me like the stage is increasingly set.
I read recently (not sure if the source was reliable) that Russia has been forward staging ground forces near Iran and that Both Russia and China, along with Iran, have been upgrading Syria’s military, which suggests to me that they are also (as one would expect) busy upgrading Iran’s military capacity.
Methinks we are either watching the biggest game of global Chicken since the Cuban Missle Crisis, or we are watching “then end of the world as we know it”.
.
Putin has just torn-up the CFE treaty Nato wouldn’t sign, so Russia is now free to move their conventional forces throughout their evil empire and target European cities with their nuclear ICBM’s or SS-24’s.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."at a recent bluegrass festival, we had a going-away party for our friend Jeff, a member of the USAF. It’s his third or fourth trip over, and this time he’s flying “close air support”.
So when I read this, i wasn’t too surprised.
.
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq – The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.
The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron , will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected “soon,” says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? “We’re still working that,” Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.
The Reaper’s first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.
“With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home,” North said.
The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers.
It’s another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years.
≈ Cross-posted from my diary —
Devastating Double Suicide Attack in Kirkuk – 90 Killed ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."