WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Top Air Force leadership in Washington is increasingly concerned about the Army using Air Force personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan for tasks traditionally performed by the infantry.
Stars and Stripes reported on Nov. 11 that the airmen's non-traditional duties include operations such as convoys, interrogations and military policing.
Air Combat Command commander Gen. Ronald Keys told journalists, "It's a problem, because I'm spending money to train my troops in skills I don't maintain in the U.S. Air Force."
Air Combat Command is based at Langley Air Force Base, Va.
Keys was complaining about military "in-lieu-of," or ILO, assignments, which are duties assigned to military personnel that fall outside their normal service specialties.
Beginning with the Operation Enduring Freedom campaign in Afghanistan in November 2001, both the Air Force and Navy have been sending ILO personnel to assist the Army in ever increasing numbers.
Keys told journalists that because the Air Force does not "maintain the core competencies to drive convoys with 50-caliber gun trucks to defend third-country nationals," the rising number of ILO assignments requires the Air Force to add special training programs in order to train the airmen for their new responsibilities. One such course is the Basic Combat Convoy Course run at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Basic Combat Convoy Course lead instructor Tech. Sgt. Jason Hohenstreiter said that as of September 2006, over 1,800 airmen have undertaken road convoy guard duty in Iraq and conducted more than 8,000 convoy operations.
The Air Force has also supplied hundreds of volunteer interrogators, another job that doesn't exist in the Air Force, to assist the Army. Under the ILO assignments the Air Force is also providing the Army with substantial numbers of military police, explosive ordnance disposal experts and combat engineers, which are Air Force "core competencies."
According to Keys, traditional Air Force doctrine has deployed these specialists to protect Air Force assets rather than sharing them with the other armed forces in a general "joint" war-fighting pool.
The campaign demands on the small number of skilled personnel is affecting their availability. Keys gave the example that in Air Combat Command, "my security forces are on one-one dwell. They're in Iraq six months and then home six months. And during that six months, they're gone for almost two, training for their next rotations," with similar situations applying "to a whole host of people."
The increasing ILO deployments are also having an affect on the Air Force financial resources. Keys told reporters that even for those airmen who aren't serving on ILO assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan, "I have this huge training bill." The Air Force faces rising costs, because it has had to increase many of its training programs to support the campaign, including additional hours of combat medical training, improvised explosive device awareness, additional weapons training and other combat skills.
Despite his concerns Keys said that the Air Force is more than willing to assist the Army during its time of need, commenting, "We are fine with doing that in order to give the Army the opportunity to reset their force. They are in a situation where they are trying to modularize their Army in the midst of a fairly huge war. ...They need to break loose some headroom. We ought to discuss it, and decide where we're going to draw the lines, so we can allocate that precious budget we have in the right places and not duplicate."
Army spokesman Paul Boyce told Stars and Stripes that, "We welcome the general's comments, and look forward to working with his staff."
One of the busiest ports in the United States is Portland, Maine, America's largest port for inbound foreign tonnage.
Unlike many U.S. ports, Portland handles a variety of vessels including passenger ships, oil tankers, ferries and commercial fishing boats, which led the United States Coast Guard to include Portland in its study of port security. The United States Coast Guard's port security study was limited to two ports.
News 8 WTMW reported on Nov. 10 that Portland transportation department head Jeff Monroe said, "We set the template for how the rest of the ports were looked at over the course of time," adding that Portland is "very secure."
In addition to his duties in Maine, Monroe also serves on a 22-member board that advises United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on port security issues.
Monroe used the example of a freighter docked in Portland to illustrate security procedures, telling a News 8 reporter, "No. 1: The Coast Guard cleared the ship to make sure it didn't have a threat. They checked a background. The second thing that happened: The whole crew list got sent to immigration. They got the manifests for the ship to see what cargo was coming in. And then the fourth thing that happened when the vessel arrived: They probably did an inspection."
Monroe noted that the first three things had to happen within 96 hours of the ship's arrival according to the regulations of the 2002 Maritime Transportation Security Act, or MTSA.
MTSA is a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. U.S. President George W. Bush signed the MTSA legislation into law on Nov. 25, 2002.
MTSA is the U.S. counterpart to the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, or ISPS, and requires all vessels entering U.S. waters and port facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop security plans, which include security patrols, restricted areas, personnel identification procedures and surveillance equipment.
In discussing Portland's adherence to the MTSA regulations Monroe noted, "It was a program that was started before 2000, but it really gained sea legs after 2001, because they were doing it from a safety standpoint, looking for substandard ships. So it was a quick jump to go from safety to security. As a result of the Exxon Valdez, there was a real set of practices put into place for oil tankers. And when the security issue came up, they were able to take the safety issues and translate them very quickly.
Despite Portland's efforts, Monroe acknowledged that more needs to be done, saying, "We need to spend money on more sophisticated equipment, similar to the airport, for explosive and radiation detection. Ultimately, there are still applications of technology that can help us adapt to the volume of cargo coming through" -- a specific reference to radiation detectors for inbound and outbound containers.
