Air Force lags on sending spy planes to combat zones

By Tom Vanden Brook

The Air Force has failed to deploy new spy planes to Afghanistan and Iraq even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it a priority to rush the aircraft to troops in combat, according to interviews with military officials and documents. Gates is concerned that the delivery of the planes to Afghanistan will be "out of synch" with 21,000 troops being sent there by President Obama for a summer offensive against Taliban insurgents, said Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman. The planes are two to three months behind schedule, according to the Air Force. "The bottom line is that Secretary Gates is impatient when it comes to getting war fighters the tools they need to be successful," Morrell said. The twin-engine spy planes are the backbone of Project Liberty, a program Gates began in July 2008. He directed the Air Force to buy 37 commercial planes and equip them with cameras and sensors to track insurgents. The planes, which carry a crew of four, are intended to complement the Predator and Reaper drones that beam video images of insurgent activity to troops in combat and to commanders worldwide by satellite.

The first plane was scheduled to be deployed April 15, and about four of them by June, Air Force documents show. To date, none has been deployed. The first plane will be used on a mission before mid-June, said Air Force Brig. Gen. James Poss, director of intelligence for the Air Combat Command. He estimated that 30 of the planes will be in Afghanistan and Iraq within a year. Similar technology has been used successfully in Iraq for Task Force Odin, Gates told the Senate last month. That task force has helped destroy networks that plant roadside bombs, the top killer of U.S. troops. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called airborne reconnaissance missions "absolutely critical" to protect troops in convoys and allow commanders real-time information from the battlefield. Without them, troops will have to limit operations, he said. The "bottleneck" has been equipping the planes with improved intelligence-gathering equipment, said Air Force Lt. Gen. John Koziol, director of the Pentagon's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force. The Pentagon has added three round-the-clock production lines "to speed up the process," he said. Other complications include ensuring that the planes can communicate with the National Security Agency, the training of crews and the development of tactics for the planes' use by soldiers and Marines, Poss said. "It was a pretty dadgum aggressive schedule that we did from the very beginning," he said. In such a project, he said, "you have to accept some kind of delay."The first seven Project Liberty planes, with sensors and communication equipment, cost $14.7 million apiece, and the next group of 24 planes will cost $21 million each. There is no cost estimate for the last six planes, according to the Air Force. Gates has moved decisively to address needs of troops in combat. He made a priority of fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) trucks to protect troops from roadside bombs, pushed for more drone missions and ordered more helicopters to Afghanistan to speed the wounded to hospitals. Last year, Gates chided the Air Force, saying that getting the service to fly more spy planes was "like pulling teeth." Gates has proposed adding $2 billion in the 2010 budget to expand surveillance programs and has asked for nearly $5 billion in the past two years, Morrell said.

Posted in: Afghanistan,Fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban,Iraq