The US Air Force (USAF), which is leading airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria, has said planners are choosing specific attack platforms based on individual targets and highlighted the key role played ground-based air controllers.
Since operations began in August, initially in just Iraq but then Syria as well starting 22 September, the USAF has conducted 74% of 240 strikes in the two countries, and 50% of those specifically in Syria, Major General Jeffrey Harrigian, the USAF's assistant deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, told reporters yesterday (29 September).
Gen Harrigian, a former F-22 Raptor pilot, noted that the aircraft saw their first-ever combat missions over Syria because planners looking at threat environment there determined they wanted the Raptor for its stealth, speed, and particularly its integrated avionics for better "situational awareness not just for the pilot in the airplane but really for the entire [equipment] package that's going to execute the mission".
He confirmed that the aircraft have participated in more than just the opening three sorties over Syria, but not always in a strike role and sometimes just as a situational awareness tool for data sharing.
Future F-22 use depends on specific targets, target locations, and the overall environment such as day or night operations, Gen Harrigian added.
Similarly, he said mission planners are including coalition partners by trying to find the best match between specific aircraft that partner states are providing and desired effects against specific targets.
"We are planning with [coalitions members] and working closely with them … to parse out the targets and determine what we're seeing so we have the right platform aligned with the right target," he said, adding that he could not confirm where it was happening but "there's probably a couple of different places where that [co-ordination] occurs".
Gen Harrigian said the coalition is using "multiple assets" to gain an understanding of the battlefield; sometimes there is a persistent view and other times there is just a snapshot that must be updated.
For targeting, Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTACs) are working in Joint Operations Centres in Baghdad and Arbil where they can co-ordinate with Iraqi Security Forces or Kurdish peshmerga "so that we know where the 'front line' is so that as targets are either developed or passed back, we're able to appropriately de-conflict".
Still, he noted that the JTAC role is "really more applicable now for the fight in Iraq" and not for Syria, where the White House has pledged not to send US ground forces.
In Syria, therefore, coalition forces "have been leveraging overhead assets and ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] to determine we've got the appropriate target, and then target it with the appropriate weapons to gain the effectiveness we're looking for", Gen Harrigian said.
He told reporters that so far US and coalition airpower had been "decisive" in preventing massing of IS forces, degrading the group's command-and-control structures, and working to impact IS financing by destroying oil refineries. However, Gen Harrigian declined to elaborate on what constitutes 'decisive' strikes against IS. "We don't have any specific metrics at the [US] Air Force level that would describe any specific effects," he said.
Gen Harrigian noted that IS operatives have learned not to move in large vehicle columns with their flag flying, and are instead now dispersing themselves "which requires us to work harder to locate them" and develop targeting solutions.
COMMENT
The operation's costs have continued to be one of the US military's major concerns, particularly as funding caps from the 2011 Budget Control Act are set to fully return in 2016 and Congress appears to support the bombing campaign but so far not support overturning the law's sequestration mechanism.
The Joint Chiefs, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, have said the military can meet US security requirements and commitments with the budget plan they submitted for fiscal year 2015 (FY 2015), but that Congress has rejected many of the proposed cuts - to personnel costs, infrastructure, aircraft fleets, and modernisation programmes - without ensuring a higher top line.
Gen Dempsey chided lawmakers on 26 September for blocking the military from reducing costs where it wanted to, even as it is being asked to do more in places such as Iraq, Syria, and Africa.
"Do I assess right now as we go into the fall review for FY [20]16 that we're going to have budget problems? Yes," the chairman told reporters at the Pentagon.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel noted during the same press conference that operations in Iraq and Syria have to date cost about USD7-10 million per day and are being funded with supplemental Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) money.
A full budget has not yet been passed for FY 2015 and the federal government is funded by a Continuing Resolution (CR) until 11 December, meaning it will receive the same amounts appropriated last year until the CR expires and either a budget or another stop-gap CR is passed.
Future costs for the operation in Iraq and Syria are difficult to predict as the timeframe is unknown (many estimates are at least several years), the airstrikes have varied in intensity, and the outcomes are largely dependent on local actors on the ground over which the United States has little control.
"Assuming a moderate level of air operations and 2,000 deployed ground forces, the costs would likely run between USD200-320 million per month," according to a 29 September projection by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), an independent think tank. The United States currently has about 1,600 troops deployed to Iraq in security roles and advisory teams.
"On an annualised basis, the lower-intensity air operations could cost USD2.4-3.8 billion per year, the higher-intensity air operations could cost USD4.2-6.8 billion per year," CSBA eastimated.