Air Force taking over for Iraq convoys

[SR-25]

UPI - Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 4:16:40 PM EST

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The Air Force is offering up its C-130 fleet to help the Army cut the number of truck convoys on the most dangerous roads in Iraq, the top Air Force general said Tuesday.

"The simple objective is to get trucks off the roads and out of harm's way," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper.

For all the attention unarmored Humvees have received in the last week, U.S. military trucks in Iraq are in far more danger. Less than 25 percent of trucks in Iraq have additional armor. Convoys rely not on steel but on speed to protect them from ambushes and roadside bombs.

It's not an especially effective defense, given the wide proliferation of armaments throughout Iraq. There have been more than 10,000 injuries in Iraq in the last 18 months, and more than 1,300 hostile deaths. The military estimates about half result from roadside bombs. In some cases, the improvised explosive devices are set off first to stop a convoy and begin an ambush with rocket-propelled grenades or small-arms fire.

"We have about 100 casualties a month in convoys," most of them from IEDs along the roads, Jumper said.

Defense against IEDs range from intelligence collection, offensive operations against bomb makers, and special jammers to detonators that detect and destroy radio-operated bombs from a distance.

Jumpers approach is to reduce the number of targets IEDs have.

"What we can do with C-130s is give ground forces the opportunity to reduce traffic on the most dangerous roads," he said.

Jumper traveled to Iraq last month to put "fresh eyes" on the problem and, as he put it to reporters, "had a little fit while I was there."

He said the communication between the officers in charge of air forces and those in charge of ground forces were not communicating about what could be done to get trucks off the roads.

The numbers are staggering. From Feb. 8, 2004, to Nov. 2, 2004, the Army moved 57,715 convoys -- a total of 785,882 vehicles. The daily average is 215 convoys and 3,000 vehicles.

Over the same period, the Air Force, with a fleet of about 64 C-130s dedicated to airlifts around Iraq, carried the loads of some 9,000 trucks and 930 military trucks, taking about 150 U.S. troops off the roads each day.

Since Jumper's visit, the Air Force has boosted its cargo flights from 350 short tons a day to 450 short tons, which takes about 30 more troops off the road in convoy operations.

"That kept the equivalent of more than 400 trucks and about 1,050 drivers with military escorts off dangerous roads in Iraq," stated Lt. Col. William Nichols, an Air Force spokesman.

Now the Air Force's deputy director of mobility forces at the combined air operations center believes the Air Force could quadruple the amount of cargo it carries around Iraq on a daily basis to 1,600 short tons.

The cargo has consisted primarily of repair parts and ammunitions, with some vehicles and medical supplies. The Air Force also took over mail operations when the Baghdad airport road was closed for six days during the height of Fallujah operations last month.

Indeed, the Air Force has begun airlifting up-armored Humvees from Kuwait to Baghdad. In the last month it has carried 44 of the vehicles, relieving the Army of having to make the long drive over dangerous roads to get them to their destination.

Each C-130 can carry two Humvees.

The Air Force is also tapping the C-17 -- normally a long-range aircraft -- to deliver cargo around Iraq, rather than dropping it in Baghdad and leaving the final distribution to convoys.

Jumper acknowledged the threat from surface-to-air missiles to increased air flights, but compared the threat favorably or equally to the high number of casualties suffered by traditional convoys.

He also said aircraft can land more or less wherever they need to, even if troops are not located near an airfield.

"I landed on wide spots in the road around Vietnam, so we know how to do that," Jumper said, recalling his years flying C-7s when he was a young officer.

The issue of armored vehicles in Iraq came to a head last week when a soldier asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait why there were not sufficient up-armored Humvees for the soldiers deploying into Iraq.

Rumsfeld said the problem was not "a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it."

In fact, the company that produces the up-armored Humvee, A.M. General, told reporters last week it could boost production by 100 vehicles if the Army wanted them.

The Army issued an order for 100 extra up-armored Humvees on Friday.

"The Army was operating under the belief that this company could make no more than, I think the number was, 450 up-armored Humvees a month," said Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita at a Tuesday press conference. "The company then came out Friday -- in some press reports somebody was attributed in the company to have said, 'Well, we can produce a lot more.' Well, the secretary of the Army called and said, 'If that's the case, we'll take them.' And the company then came out and said, 'Well, not so fast; we'd have to retool, and it would be February before we can do that.'"

The Army has created a task force to look at the issue of armor in Iraq to see if more can be done on other products.

Michigan Democrat Sen. Carl Levin said in a teleconference Tuesday that the Senate Armed Services Committee is likely to convene a hearing on the armor question.

"It turns out the army was not doing all they could. We had the assurance they were going 24/7," Levin said.

He said the committee will also ask why such a small number of trucks have armor.

Levin echoed other critics of the Pentagon in saying the military was not properly prepared for this insurgency.

"The consensus is that the problem was created by the assumption adopted going on," Levin said. "That there would be a peaceful aftermath and we would (not) be using Humvees and trucks in urban guerilla warfare."

"That assumption -- a mistake -- has led to a lot of problems, including inadequate troops and equipment not sufficient to deal with the violent aftermath," Levin said.

He said former Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told Levin and Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the military had nothing to do with planning for post-war operations. That was handled by the civilian side of the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, according to Levin.


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Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.


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[CFergusn]

Great lets blow up 3 million dollar airplanes instead. No one thought this convoy thing out to well, where are the armaments and most of all, where is the damn fire power?