THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606220262
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AZRAQ, JORDAN LENGTH: 199 lines
Until his retirement 20 months ago, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. McPeak was a favorite whipping boy for legions of senior Navy leaders.
A relentless advocate for his service, McPeak infuriated the Navy by suggesting that long-range Air Force bombers could replace at least some aircraft carriers in providing a quick response to international crises.
The Navy brass eventually squashed that argument, convincing Congress and President Clinton that carriers and their battle groups, positioned close to trouble, are indispensible for reminding potential aggressors of American resolve and delivering the first U.S. blow if fighting starts.
But now, at a dusty desert base in eastern Jordan, the Air Force is testing and refining a new, quick-response capability that could again threaten the carrier's supremacy as America's 911 force.
An ``Airpower Expeditionary Force'' of 30 Air Force F-15s and F-16s, plus four KC-135 tankers, deployed here in April and is due to return home at the end of the month. The fighters are flying six-day-a-week sorties over southern Iraq, helping enforce United Nations sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf War.
``Combat-capability wise, we have as much. . . as they do in the carrier,'' said Brig. Gen. William R. ``Tunes'' Looney III, the AEF's commander.
``We are not a substitute for (carriers),'' he added. ``We are a like capability that can be used along with the carrier. And if the carrier has got to be moved from one area of responsibility to another, we can take the carrier's place in the area it is leaving.''
The presence of Looney's 1,100 troops and their jets allowed the aircraft carrier George Washington to leave the Persian Gulf last month for patrols in the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas. And soon after Looney's troops strike the tents in ``Tunes Town,'' the sprawling camp they've built here, another AEF will begin flying missions into Iraq from a base in the Gulf nation of Qatar.
The Air Force and the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military activity in the Middle East, want to establish a network of five sites for AEF deployments in the region. One site already has been established in Bahrain, site of a small deployment last year; the Qatar deployment is upcoming, and the State Department is negotiating with two as-yet-unidentified countries for deployments this fall or in 1997.
On their initial trip to each site, the Americans are building permanent shelters for an assortment of generators, trucks and other equipment that will help them get planes into combat quickly should they have to return in a crisis.
``We can't just find an airstrip in the middle of nowhere, land airplanes and start generating sorties,'' Looney acknowledged.
But once a skeletal infrastructure is in place at each site, perhaps before the end of 1997, Air Force planners believe they'll be able to dispatch a force like Looney's from stateside bases within 24 hours of receiving orders from the Pentagon.
And 24 hours after that, Looney said, the AEF should be able to have its jets and people at any of five host bases in the Middle East and to launch missions into Iraq.
In an interview with reporters who visited the camp early this month, Looney suggested that the first troops arriving for such a deployment would pull out the stored equipment and set up cots in the storage buildings. Those people would take care of the fighters and live off field rations while other troops put up a tent city like Tunes Town in three to four days.
``We wanted to validate that it is light and it is lethal and (that) once we arrive we can fly combat sorties right off the bat,'' he said.
Looney noted that the AEF concept could be carried to potential trouble spots elsewhere in the world. Southeast Asia, where the U.S. has been without a permanent presence since the closure of Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, is a particular area of need, he suggested.
``This is all about developing a new capability for the nation,'' Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told AEF troops during a visit to Azraq last month. ``So when we have trouble brewing somewhere and we need to get airpower there very quickly, we understand how to do it.''
The AEF idea was hatched by U.S. military planners as they evaluated America's response to threatening gestures by Iraq in the fall of 1994.
Saddam Hussein had moved forces below the 32nd parallel and toward Kuwait, and America scrambled to bring additional U.S. muscle to the region. Pentagon spokesmen described the effort in glowing terms at the time, but Looney admitted that ``we were kind of caught unprepared.''
The George Washington, then operating in the Mediterranean, needed several days to steam around the Arabian peninsula and into the Persian Gulf. Military sources suggested that uniformed leaders were aghast at what they saw as Kuwait's vulnerability had Saddam chosen to move before the carrier arrived.
Senior Navy officials declined comment publicly concerning the AEF and its implications for carrier aviation, but one argued privately that the Navy ``doesn't have a bone to pick'' with the Air Force over the new concept.
``They're not the same,'' the official asserted. ``They're not intended to do the same things.''
Still, independent analysts like retired Vice Adm. Jack Shanahan, director of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, say that lower-cost deployment options like the AEF are bound to become increasingly attractive to military planners as defense budgets continue to tighten.
``We need to reduce the military budget, so we've got to search all of the services to see what they can do together,'' Shanahan said.
Today's carriers cost roughly $5 billion to build and about $440 million a year to operate, according to the Navy. The AEF's budget for its current three-month deployment, by contrast, is less than $6 million, though a Central Command spokesman acknowledged that the figure covers only costs directly attributable to operating in Jordan.
Not included, the spokesman said, are expenses that would be incurred even if the planes and troops remained in the U.S. That includes troop salaries and the cost of fuel that would be used in stateside training and other flights.
Though Looney asserted that an AEF's offensive airpower is roughly equivalent to a carrier's, he acknowledged that the destroyers, submarines and amphibious ships that typically accompany a carrier, along with the precision-guided missiles and Marines they carry, give the naval force added potency.
And while the ships essentially are self-sustaining, carrying all the fuel, food and munitions necessary for a prolonged engagement, the AEF must secure food, fuel and sanitary services from local contractors and haul bombs, rockets and ammunition from the United States.
Looney also acknowledged that the AEF is limited by the willingness of its host country to provide space for a base and to have itself seen as a U.S. ally should fighting break out.
While a carrier attacking Iraq, for example, can launch sorties from international waters directly into enemy territory, the AEF had to negotiate basing rights with Jordan and secure permission from Saudi Arabia to operate in its airspace on the way to and from Iraq.
``A constraint of land-based air is that we have to have a runway,'' Looney observed, ``which means we have to have some kind of an agreement.''
For a lengthy deployment like the one now under way, the AEF also needs local civilian sources of food, fuel and such services as laundry and waste disposal.
``If we do it the right way,'' he said, ``we become gracious guests, and hopefully make it so that when we leave, they can't wait for us to come back.''
By that measure, the AEF seems a roaring success. After two months as his guests, Americans ``are welcome anytime,'' said Brig. Gen. Yahya A. Karaimeh, commander of Mwaffaq Al Salti. ``As a matter of fact, my personal feeling is that I don't want them to leave.''
Still, Looney got a lesson in Middle East political delicacies during the first days of his current deployment. After an initial day of sorties into Iraq, the AEF's fighters were limited to training missions over Jordan for about a week while American, Jordanian and Saudi officials negotiated over where the F-15s and F-16s could cross the Jordan-Saudi border.
The Jordanians wanted U.S. planes to leave their airspace at one point on the boundary, one pilot explained, and the Saudis wanted the Americans to enter their skies at another spot. The eventual solution: The jets fly to the Jordan exit point each day, then head south directly over the border for about 60 miles to the Saudi entry.
In a high-performance fighter, the detour takes only three or four minutes. But if such disputes arise in peacetime involving a nation as clearly menacing as Iraq, an AEF could find itself more seriously hamstrung if actual hostilities broke out.
At the same time, land bases may have some advantages over carriers, advocates suggest. In the case of the current AEF in Jordan, U.S. diplomats are betting that they can use the deployment to strengthen American ties to a country that was neutral in the Persian Gulf War.
After flying missions over Iraq most mornings, the AEF's pilots and aircrews spend their afternoon instructing Royal Jordanian Air Force personnel to fly and take care of the F-16. Jordan is to take delivery on 16 early model F-16s from the U.S. next year.
``There are things that land-based (planes) cannot do, that sea-based can,'' Looney said. ``By the same token, there are things that land-based can do that sea-based can't. The key is to work those together.
``I think there is a little bit of paranoia out there among some naval officers'' about the AEF, he added. ``I think in some media circles, some folks have picked up on this as a possible story.
``I will tell you there's no story. I do not want to see the carriers go away. If the carriers go away, then that means that Air Force people are going to have to be gone a lot more. Carriers don't want to see fighter wings go away (either). As a matter of fact, once we start to see these AEFs take a little bit more of the taskings, they'll be glad that they're going home. So it's mutually beneficial.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
A crew prepares an F-16, above, on the tarmac at Mwaffaq Al Salti
Air Base. Below, Lt. David Postoll, a 30-year-old New Jersey native,
is a Navy man flying an Air Force F-15 as part of an exchange
program between the two services. Assigned to the 94th Fighter
Squadron at Langley since December, Postoll said he has found the
Air Force a ``more corporate'' organization than the Navy.
Capt. Jennifer Nelson, left, isn't intimidated by her status as one
of just two female pilots assigned to the AEF. Both women fly
KC-135s, but Nelson, 28, has her eyes on the F-15 Eagles. Airman 1st
Class Devon C. Cosby, left, opens the hatch on a KC-135 tanker after
a refueling mission over Saudi Arabia.
With tents as a backdrop, above, the USO band Sunflower performs on
a recent Sunday for members of the U.S. and Jordanian armed services
at Tunes Town, a military installation named for Brig. Gen. William
R. ``Tunes'' Looney III. At left, tanker trucks loaded with Iraqi
oil rumble past Mwaffaq Al Salti carrying fuel for homes and
businesses in Jordan.
Days begin with the moon still high in the sky over the 25-acre
Mwaffaq Al Salti Air Base, home of the 4417th Airpower Expeditionary
Force. The troops live in a tent city equipped with a library,
video games, movies and a satellite dish that captures CNN and other
channels from home. There also are hot showers, working toilets, a
kitchen that serves three hot meals every day, a pool and a beer
tent.
KEYWORDS: JORDAN SAUDI ARABIA U.S. AIR FORCE
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