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.”
House lawmakers are moving to keep the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail development program alive after the Pentagon announced plans to wind it down in the coming years.