Retired Gen. John Jumper, former Air Force Chief of Staff, writes that a recent Washington Times article “impugning airpower’s ability to contribute decisively in conflicts … misses the mark.” Jumper, who provided us a copy of his letter (a version of which ran in the Sept. 6 Times), points out the irrelevance of the assertion by Fred Reed (and others) that airpower advocates overpromise what they can deliver, using as an example that Israeli airpower did not unilaterally defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Since the evolution of air, land and naval components in joint warfare, no strategically successful military leadership has expected one service to be ‘decisive’ on its own,” writes Jumper. One thing that Jumper believes would greatly benefit the military is “less of the divisive interservice putdowns that are far more prevalent today in the pens of pundits than in the minds of American warfighters.”

At last report, the search for Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, who disappeared Sept. 5 during a trip to a store in downtown Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, is still in place. More details are slowly emerging as a joint US-Kyrgyz investigation is...

The Air Force’s cyberspace plan is slated to roll out in a “matter of weeks,” according to Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, chief of warfighting integration and Air Force chief information officer. Peterson told reporters Tuesday that senior Air Force leaders...

Air Mobility Command has deployed a second entire C-17 squadron to a base in Southwest Asia to conduct airlift operations from within US Central Command’s area of operations. Some 140 airmen, comprising 14th Airlift Squadron at Charleston AFB, S.C., deployed...

Air Force Reserve Command says it has already passed its recruiting goal for 2006, taking in the 8,001 recruit on Aug. 31. Officials credit Reserve airmen for providing the most enlisted recruiting leads to the command’s recruiters, under a program...

The aerial results of a Coast Guard flyover Sept. 2 of Wake Island were encouraging, showing much less damage from Typhoon Ioke than Air Force officials initially feared. USAF specialists from the 36th Contingency Response Group at Andersen AFB, Guam,...

USAF awarded Raytheon a $54 million contract Sept. 5 to construct and test a demonstration satellite with “a full-earth sharing sensor assembly” to provide a threshold missile warning capability and objectives of the Space-Based Infrared System satellite program. The company...

The President’s updated national strategy for combating terrorism, dated September 2006, offers a new vision for “protecting and defending the Homeland, the American peoples, and their livelihoods.” In the overview to the 23-page strategy, President Bush states, “This updated strategy...

The State Department recently released a list of the top eight most prevalent conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The top theory suggests that controlled demolitions destroyed the World Trade Center’s twin towers, a theory that is refuted by...

A group of 52 Spanish airmen and three Spanish Air Force C-130 Hercules cargo airplanes are at Manas AB, Kyrgyzstan, supporting Spanish and International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan. Called the Mizar detachment, the Spanish airmen are providing intra-theater airlift—primarily aeromedical evacuation—while on a two-month deployment from Zaragoza AFB, Spain. The detachment, which is the second for the Spanish Air Force to Southwest Asia, has flown more than 350 missions, airlifted more than 15,000 personnel and 3.3 million pounds of cargo, and flown more than 2,800 hours, according to the Ganci Gazette.

The Government Accountability Office, in a just released report on DOD’s management of military force structure, suggests that one way the Pentagon could provide more personnel to meet Army needs is to “reassign and retrain available personnel for high-demand Army...

Arnold Engineering and Development Center in Tennessee has wrapped up wind tunnel testing on a 1/12 scale model of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the Air Force’s conventional takeoff and Marine Corps’ short takeoff and landing variants. Center officials...

In line with the DOD Inspector General’s finding, the Transportation Department’s IG cleared FAA officials of any wrongdoing during their 9/11 Commission testimony. “We did not find evidence to conclude that FAA officials knowingly made false statements, purposely omitted accurate...

Sept. 5, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 13 5 18 CAS/Armed Recon 44 38 82 Airlift 170 170 Air refueling 39 39 Total 57 43 209 309 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance