U.S. building bases in Afghanistan to aid drones

U.S. building bases in Afghanistan to aid drones (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON — November 11, 2008: The Pentagon is building a series of air bases in eastern Afghanistan as part of its massive expansion of a system that uses drone aircraft to spy on and attack Taliban insurgents, according to interviews and documents.

A crew checks an MQ-9 Reaper before it takes off for a mission in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, harsh winters and a lack of airstrips near the fighting can hinder drone flights. It can take as long as three hours for a drone to reach battlefields, particularly in the rugged mountain area near the border with Pakistan. That area has seen some of the toughest fighting for U.S. troops. By contrast, it can take as little as 10 minutes for a drone to reach hot spots in Baghdad because the Iraqi capital has more air bases, said Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of the Pentagon's unmanned aerial systems task force. "What the (Pentagon) is trying to do is go in and develop bases closer to those areas that we know we're going to have a sustained presence after a long period of time," Weatherington said. "In fact, recently we set up a couple of additional bases closer to the Pakistan border that cut down those transit times." Col. Greg Julian, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said in an e-mail that the military is adding more bases to accommodate drones and additional troops. The military is developing drones with better deicing systems to help deal with the Afghan winters, he said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the expansion of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability a top priority at the Pentagon. The ability to covertly monitor insurgents' movement and communication in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped the military kill top terrorists and detect roadside bombs. "There's an insatiable demand" for information that can help U.S. forces target insurgents before they can strike, said Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Mastin Robeson, who leads the Marines' special operations command, said prompt, accurate intelligence is key to defeating insurgents. The information provided to his Marines in Afghanistan has been "terrific, but there's never enough," Robeson said. "We absolutely can use more." Much of the budget for intelligence collection is secret, but some figures are not classified. Last year, the Pentagon received authority from Congress to shift $1.3 billion in its budget to pay for more drones and the systems needed to fly them. It will shift at least $750 million this year. In addition, it will spend more than $3 billion to buy and develop new unmanned systems this year, Weatherington said. The Pentagon has also bought more piloted planes, outfitted with cameras and other sensors, to survey the battlefield. The use of drones, which supply 95% of the full-motion video images commanders use to watch insurgent activity, has skyrocketed in recent years. As recently as 2005, drones flew 100,000 hours, most of it in support of troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the number of hours in flight increased to nearly 400,000. Since last year, the military has added more than 600 unmanned aircraft, ranging from small hand-launched spy planes to missile- and bomb-carrying Reapers. The military has about 6,000 such aircraft, up from 167 drones at the beginning of the war in 2001. Air Force surveillance flights in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased substantially. In Iraq in September, the Air Force flew 862 surveillance sorties compared with 506 in September 2007. In Afghanistan, the Air Force flew 462 surveillance flights in September compared with 248 a year earlier.