When President Bush attended the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, he took along a USAF E-3 AWACS to help provide airborne surveillance for the meeting of 33 North and South American leaders. The 552nd Air Control Wing, deployed from Tinker AFB, Okla., flew nine sorties during the weeklong summit. Wing officials said it was the largest E-3 deployment since the unit participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The AWACS team had host-nation military personnel, who provided the vital link between the E-3 and Argentinean ground control. The USAF E-3 aircraft worked with Argentine Air Force fighters, providing strike support for the meeting.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.