Michael Wynne, the Air Force’s top civilian, said the Air Force is now mostly reactive in its posture in Iraq, having shifted away from “scheduled air operations to on-call air operations.” However, he noted that US ground forces now expect fast-reaction close air support. Wynne said that the Army has gotten so accustomed to having CAS on demand that if it takes 10 minutes “they think their radios don’t work.”
A half-dozen pilots from one of the Air Force’s premier F-16 units, the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., have been awarded one of the service’s highest decorations for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.