Tale of the Tape on Air Mobility: USAF air mobility forces have been working overtime ever since the war on terror began in 2001. In recent Congressional testimony, Gen. Norton Schwartz, commander of USTRANSCOM, quantified the magnitude of the 2005 effort. Airlift support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq: 1,188,084 passengers and 457,670 tons of cargo moved. Air tanker ops: 508,000 tons of fuel offloaded. Force rotation of units to and from Iraq and Afghanistan: 250,000 passengers and 11,000 tons of cargo in the first three months of 2005.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
