| Apparently President Bambi hasn't been telling us the whole truth... |
An Africa Command (AFRICOM) spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that since NATO's Operation Unified Protector (OUP) took over from the American-led Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 31, the U.S. military has flown hundreds of strike sorties. Previously, Washington had claimed that it was mostly providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and tanker support to NATO forces operating over Libya.
| I thought President Bambi told us that we weren't flying combat missions. |
A White House report on Libya sent to Congress on June 15 says that "American strikes are limited to the suppression of enemy air defense and occasional strikes by unmanned Predator UAVs against a specific set of targets." The report also says the U.S. provides an "alert strike package."
| Which apparently are dropping ordnance. Bambi never mentioned that. |
However, those F-16s are not solely drawn from units based in Spangdahlem, Germany, or Aviano, Italy. The service has reportedly deployed U.S.-based units to Europe to conduct these operations.
The AFRICOM spokeswoman did not address why U.S.-based units were deployed for the mission.
The Navy's Growlers are based at Whidbey Island, Wash.
However, those may not be the only strike aircraft flying over Libya. Last week, Air Force F-15E crews attending the Paris Air Show, along with their public affairs officer, said they could not talk about their activities in Libya during Odyssey Dawn because they are not able to comment on "current operations."
AFRICOM couldn't immediately say when the last U.S. strike sortie over Libya was flown.
The fact that the U.S. is conducting strike missions over Libya should not come as a surprise, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the service's former intelligence chief.
"It's no surprise to me that we've been participating, because we're a member of NATO," Deptula said.
What is different now, he said, is that sorties are planned differently under NATO control. Deptula said it is not particularly surprising that additional units would be brought in to support those operations.
The White House declined to comment on how 801 strike sorties constitutes "limited" involvement, but Harold Koh, a State Department legal adviser, said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that "when U.S forces engage in a limited military mission, that involves limited exposure for U.S. troops, and limited risk of serious escalation, and employs limited military means, we are not in the kind of hostilities of the kind envisioned by the War Powers Resolution."
He said there have been "no active exchanges of fire with hostile forces" despite AFRICOM's statement that weapons had been dropped during 132 sorties.
Most air assets involved in the campaign are reconnaissance aircraft, including the U-2 high-altitude spy plane, E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System ground surveillance aircraft and the Navy's P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The U.S. provides nearly 70 percent of the NATO operation's ISR capacity, according to the White House report.
| Because the Euros don't have intel aircraft. You'd think they would want to fix that but apparently they don't. Think of the lost opportunity for EADS. |
| Wearing down our tankers. Where is the M-400 EADS tanker? |