Wing boss: Dropping fewer bombs in Afghanistan - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Wing boss: Dropping fewer bombs in Afghanistan

The command directive to limit U.S. tactical air support in Afghanistan to better avoid civilian casualties has translated into less ordnance being delivered in support of ground troops, the commander of one of two Air Force wings in the country said Tuesday.

“We have dropped fewer bombs since the [July 2010] tactical directive,” said Brig. Gen. Steven Kwast, commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing since April 2009, “because the ground force commanders are becoming more and more focused on protecting the people instead of chasing the enemy.”

At the same time, “We still go after the enemy,” said Kwast, who spoke to Pentagon reporters from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan via a satellite linkup,. And, he asserted, “We fly more now than we ever have, because we need to be there for the ground force commander.”

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s directive was aimed at avoiding the alienation that misdirected air strikes foments among locals. In the most recent confirmed incidents, two February strikes left about three dozen civilians dead. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently told reporters that such incidents “are critical in hampering our efforts in Afghanistan.”

Gates said he would demand accountability should the ongoing investigation into the Feb. 12 mishap in Gardez conclude such a step is necessary.

Kwast’s wing oversees the daily operations of two close air support squadrons and a Navy electronic warfare attack squadron but also is responsible for all expeditionary flights and aeromedical evacuation operations in Afghanistan. Those flights have been re-routed in a number of ways by the Iceland volcano’s huge ash plume that has grounded thousands of air travelers trying to traverse Europe, Kwast said.

Some aeromedical flights have gone straight out of theater to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Kwast said. But depending on a variety of factors that military doctors weigh, others stop at Balad, Iraq, where there are doctors for patients requiring urgent care that normally would be provided at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany.

“That intermediate stop saves lives,” Kwast said.

The decision to stop at Balad, he said, is made on a case-by-case basis — in part, he said, because, “The reality is that Balad does not have the same capacity as Landstuhl.” Some patients, he said, are stable enough to make the nonstop flight to Andrews; Kwast said he presumes that moving as many patients as possible straight back to the U.S. helps preserve capacity at Balad in the event of some sort of mass casualty event.

The return route for those killed in action — separate flights from the medevacs — is “slightly south” of the volcanic ash plume’s drift. “There’s no delay,” Kwast said. “It’s just a different route.

“We watch the jet stream every day,” Kwast said. “We watch the weather patterns to see how that ash is manifesting itself in the sky … and every day is a different decision. Every medical case is a different decision.”