NOVANEWS
Haaretz
U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to delay a planned military operation against Syria until the end of the congressional debates was preceded by a warning from the commander of the United States Air Force that a budget cutback in the Pentagon had severely affected the Air Force’s combat preparedness. The commander, General Mark Welsh, issued the warning publicly, in meetings with troops at Air Force bases in Japan and in an interview with Air Force Magazine, the online journal of the Air Force Association.
By promising that the operation would not involve prolonged involvement of ground forces, Obama put most of the burden on the aircraft and missile arrays of the Air Force and the Navy. Welsh’s warning shows that Obama’s reasons for delaying the operation were as much military in nature, as political and international.
Haaretz in depth coverage of the crisis in Syria: Israel, U.S. carry out joint missile test in Mediterranean Sea (Gili Cohen, Reuters and Jack Khoury) || A game-changer for Assad, even if there is no U.S. strike (Zvi Bar’el) || Obama, Syria and the prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran (Amos Harel)
According to Welsh, the reason the U.S. Air Force is only partially prepared is the grounding of interception and electronic combat squadrons. He said that he had not been pleased with the Air Force’s level of preparation while planning for its missions in Syria.
Welsh, whose official title is chief of staff of the Air Force, is responsible for building up the Air Force, but not for its combat operations, which are entrusted to the commanders of the various theaters. The commander of the operation against Syria will be General Lloyd Austin, the commander of the United States Central Command. Syria is in his jurisdiction, though troops serving on ships in the Mediterranean Sea, in Europe and even on bases in North America will be called up as well.
The operation is being planned jointly by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, CENTCOM, the Unified Combatant Commands (particularly the U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of missiles and bombers, and the special operations forces.)
The chiefs of staff of the ground forces, Air Force, Navy and Marines are not in the chain of command, which leads directly from the president and defense secretary to the theater commanders. But they have a great deal of influence as the military advisers authorized by the National Command Authority — the president and the defense secretary — and as figures who report to Congress and are cited as experts in the media. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has expressed his reservations about an operation in Syria, even as he acquiesced to Obama’s statement that the military was prepared and ready for action.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel asked the joint chiefs of staff to prepare “a range of options,” Welsh said in Japan, “and we have been doing that planning. This is part of our due diligence.” But the joint chiefs of staff, led by Dempsey, expressed their reservations about the operation, the troops required to carry it out and its attendant obligations. The challenges the American army faces in Syria are more complex than they were in Libya on the eve of the operation there in the summer of 2011, said Welsh. “Over the last eight months or so, the Chiefs have been united on this,” he said. “We’ve been pretty blunt about this.”
Last month, Welsh came to Israel for meetings with Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Air Force commander Amir Eshel, who also know the trouble caused by budget cutbacks. He knows the Israel Defense Forces well, having previously been commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe, where Israel was the only Middle Eastern country within his area of responsibility.
Welsh said that two of the most vital capabilities in any airborne operation against Syria would be F-16 fighter jets, which are intended for electronic combat against Russian-made ground-to-air missiles, and F-22 fighter jets, which are intended for aerial combat. These squadrons have been grounded over the past few months, with the exception of F-22 fighter jets that were deployed in the Pacific Ocean theater for fear that a war might break out in Korea. The grounding enabled the Air Force general staff to provide tuition assistance to soldiers.
The threat of a cutback in funding for tuition assistance, which caused a great deal of bitterness among Air Force troops, was prevented only thanks to the Air Force general staff’s willingness to reduce flight hours, which resulted in the grounding of squadrons. According to the Air Force journal, 33 squadrons were grounded in recent months, while other squadrons have only a basic level of preparedness.
General Burton M. Field, the deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force (a position similar to that of a head of operations in the Israeli Air Force), told Air Force Magazine that the budget for flight hours had been cut by 30 percent due to sequestration and that less than 50 percent of the Air Force’s “primary fighting forces” were at the desired readiness level of 80 percent. The highest priority was given to the units operating in Afghanistan, maintaining nuclear capability, interception preparedness (for a Global Force Management Plan for dealing with events like the one that took place on September 11, 2001) and deployment in Korea and Japan.
Air Combat Command chief General G. Michael Hostage III warned of a shortage of combat personnel in the Air Force. “If Syria blows up or Iran blows up or North Korea blows up, I don’t have a bunch of excess forces I can immediately shift to that conflict. I’m going to have to pull them from other places,” he said. The cutbacks also affect the refueling squadrons, advanced training for fighter pilots, training of ground forces and aircraft and engine maintenance.
