COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: General
Air Force's Role Changing in Iraq
Associated Press
January 03, 2006
AN AIR
BASE IN KUWAIT - U.S. airmen are increasingly on the ground in Iraq,
driving in convoys and even working with detainees - a shift in the Air
Force's historic mission that military officials call necessary to
bolster the strapped Army.
The main aerial hub for the war in Iraq has 1,500 airmen doing convoy
operations in Iraq and 1,000 working with detainees, training Iraqis
and performing other activities not usually associated with the Air
Force, said Col. Tim Hale, commander of the 386th Air Expeditionary
Wing.
"Every one of us has learned that we are in a nontraditional state in
our armed forces," he said, standing outside an auditorium at an air
base in Kuwait.
The dangers of the new roles were highlighted when the expeditionary
wing lost its first female member in the line of duty in Iraq. Airman
1st Class Elizabeth Jacobson, 21, was killed in a roadside bombing
while providing convoy security in September near the U.S. detention
center at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
"More and more Air Force are doing Army jobs," said Senior Master Sgt.
Matt Rossoni, 46, of San Francisco. "It's nothing bad about the Army.
They're just tapped out."
Air Force security forces are traditionally associated with base
defense. But Chief Master Sgt. Tom McDaniel, 41, of Winston-Salem,
N.C., said his squadron is happy to provide security for patrols and to
deliver supplies.
"It's all about getting the mission done," he said. "These are
different roles we find ourselves in . ... This is probably the
forefront of things to come."
The Navy is seeing the same trend, using its fighter aircraft to escort
convoys and protect oil infrastructure and sending sailors in boats to
contact fishermen from Saudi Arabia and even Iran for tips on terror
suspects.
"In the last three or four years we've done a lot more of that," Rear
Adm. James A. Winnefeld, commander of Carrier Strike Group 2, said
aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The Air Force also is keeping up with its traditional duties.
In November, the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing delivered its 1 millionth
passenger to Iraq since October 2003, Hale told service members
gathered Monday for a holiday concert with the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace.
Those missions included transporting troops, casualties and cargo flights.
The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps flew thousands of missions in
support of U.S. ground troops in Iraq this fall, including attacks by
unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military
records show. American and allied refueling, transport and surveillance
planes also are in the air.
Airstrikes have been largely in areas where the insurgency is
strongest, like Balad, Ramadi and in the vicinity of Baghdad, according
to the U.S. Central Command.
At least 2,179 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq
war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Brig. Gen. Allen G. Peck, deputy commander of American air forces in
the Middle East, said that while the U.S. has been focusing on training
Iraqi ground forces, it also is helping Iraqis improve their air force,
giving them training and C-130 cargo planes.
The Iraqis have about 50 aircraft and some 700 people trained in the
air force, among some 180,000 security forces overall, he said at an
air base near Qatar.
"It's relatively small right now, but it's getting bigger," he said.
Peck said the near-term focus was training in maintenance,
reconnaissance, transport and counterinsurgency tactics, but the Iraqis
also should eventually become capable of defending their own air space.
"It's not a matter of months, but a matter of years," he said. "We're moving in the right direction."
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