Air Force Plans Altered Role In Iraq

By THOM SHANKER
Published: July 29, 2008
Courtesy Of The New York Times

The commander of American and allied air forces in the Middle East has completed a detailed plan for how air power would be refocused in Iraq if, as is widely anticipated, the number of American ground troops was reduced in the final months of the Bush presidency and beyond.

The commander, Lt. Gen. Gary North, described a future approach that would rely on jet fighters and bombers to help ensure the safety of American troops who remain behind to train Iraqis as the number of allied ground combat troops decreased.

In addition, surveillance aircraft would take on an ever increasing role in spotting adversaries, while transport planes would continue to support a growing Iraqi military, which for now is not capable of supplying itself.

“I have got a deliberate plan, as we all do, based on future requirements, because our job is not only to execute today’s fight but to be prepared for continued integration in the future,” General North said during an interview this month at his headquarters in Southwest Asia.

The number of American troops carrying out combat missions is expected to decline as Iraqis take the lead in security operations, while the percentage of Americans who serve as embedded trainers with Iraqi units is anticipated to grow, according to senior Pentagon planners.

“The challenge we face is that while the requirement for ground combat forces will diminish, we will still have large numbers of mobile training teams out with Iraqi forces doing their mission,” said one senior military planner based at the Pentagon, who discussed future strategy under standard ground rules of anonymity. “If they get in trouble, air power will have to increasingly fill the role of a quick response force. There simply won’t be the numbers of ground combat troops to make that guarantee.”

In Baghdad, in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail, there is increasingly specific talk of timetables, or at least of “a general time horizon,” for United States withdrawals from Iraq — but the talk glosses over the questions of exactly how many soldiers will be left behind once combat troops are gone, and precisely what their mission will be.

There is consensus that Iraqi security forces are becoming increasingly effective at domestic counterinsurgency but could hardly stand up to a conventional foe from outside the nation’s borders. And there is agreement that there are three critical military tasks the Iraqi forces still cannot fulfill: providing combat support and logistics, carrying out high-tech surveillance and conducting close-air support for combat missions.

So American forces can be expected to perform those three requirements for the foreseeable future. But even as air power would play a central role in this future mission, the nature of the Air Force’s participation could change, General North said.

For the first time in Iraq, the Air Force is flying missions this month with the new Reaper, a large remotely controlled vehicle that carries not only advanced surveillance sensors, but also bombs and missiles comparable to those on top-of-the-line piloted fighters.

“I’m looking at the opportunity to complement our manned airplanes with an increased amount of unmanned attack platforms — the Reaper — so that I get persistence overhead at a lower overall cost,” General North said.

Not only do Reaper pilots sit in a trailer at a safe distance from the front lines, but the vehicles require less refueling and thus can stay aloft for long periods, so the number of airborne tankers would diminish as Reapers take on a growing role. “The capability that I am providing comes at less manpower on the ground,” General North said.

Aerial bombardment increases the risk of accidental civilian casualties, however. In Afghanistan, a recent spate of civilian casualties from allied bombing has drawn protests from the government and human rights groups, and in Iraq, during the offensive this spring to rout militias loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, there were reports of civilian casualties.

United States air commanders say that they are aware of the risks of collateral damage as a result of an increased reliance on air power, but they say that there has been far less bombing in Iraq in recent months as the security situation has improved, and that they hope the trend will continue.

A concern raised over past months by military analysts is that with diminishing numbers of United States troops on the ground, Iraqis would take on the role of calling in American airstrikes. That, some analysts have warned, would put a powerful weapon in the hands of ill-trained Iraqi forces who, some fear, might attempt to use American air power to achieve sectarian goals. General North dismissed that concern, saying that only United States or allied air controllers would be allowed to call in airstrikes from American or allied fighters and bombers.

These restrictions would be part of a program to limit accidental civilian casualties should bombing play a larger role in the months ahead, commanders say.

To a degree, the Air Force has become a victim of its own progress, having created a nearly insatiable desire for live video surveillance, especially as provided from remotely piloted vehicles like the Predator and now the Reaper.

On one average day over the past several weeks, senior ground commanders in Iraq requested more than 400 hours of video over a single 24-hour period. The combined surveillance efforts by the Army, Navy and Air Force provided more than 95 percent of the hours requested. Almost 75 percent of the requested hours were supplied by aircraft under General North’s Combined Air and Space Operations Center headquarters.

A reporter for The New York Times was given access to the air operations center under a written agreement that neither the name of the base nor its location would be published, in deference to the host nation’s concerns.

The push for surveillance has prompted the Air Force to adopt a number of new measures, including an order to put video pods on fighters and bombers assigned to the region; historically, these warplanes did not carry out surveillance as part of their missions.

Brig. Gen. Michael R. Moeller, commander of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, said that by the end of this summer, the entire fleet of B-1 bombers assigned to missions over Iraq and Afghanistan would have video sensors. Already, all of the tactical fighters have been equipped with these devices.

“Every attack aircraft in the area of operations will have full-motion video, and this will be a major enhancement of our capabilities,” General Moeller said. “This is a nontraditional mission for our fighters and bombers, but we can do it without losing any of the other capabilities.”

Past Coverage

1. U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians (July 28, 2008)

2. Gates Wants to Shift $1.2 Billion to Bolster War Surveillance (July 26, 2008)

3. 4,000 U.S. Deaths, and a Handful of Images (July 26, 2008)

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