Reversing a split that caused a fair amount of grumbling over the summer, the Pentagon announced late Thursday that National Reconnaissance Office Director Donald Kerr has been appointed to a new Air Force post as the assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force for intelligence space technology. The appointment took effect Oct. 3. Kerr is the first person to be named NRO director who is not also the undersecretary of the Air Force. (DR, 09/22/05) Undersecretary Ronald Sega is also the DOD executive agent for space. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last month that all interested parties, including the Air Force, believe that splitting away the NRO job made better management sense, but that the Air Force and NRO should remain “closely connected.”
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
