Through the first four months of 2011, Air Force C-130s and C-17s have air-dropped more than 25 million pounds of cargo via to supply ground troops in Afghanistan, according to Air Mobility Command officials. That’s around 6.25 million pounds per month. Should that pace continue for the rest of the year, the Air Force would deliver about 75 million pounds this way, shattering the current record of 60.4 million pounds in 2010. (Scott report by MSgt. Scott T. Sturkol) (See also Airpower on the Rise for Southwest Asia air sortie totals for 2010.)
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.