According to Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz the answer to that question is “not fully cooked, but it will be by the end of the month,” testifying at the May 21 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the 2010 Air Force budget proposal. However, that report is not necessarily for public consumption, for as Air Force Secretary Michael Donley pointed out that report is due to Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn. Donley said, too, “I do not think this report will be the last report; I think this is an interim description of how far the conversations have gone, what issues we’ve identified, and the path we have outlined forward … related to the future bed downs, related to the program management transfer of responsibility.” When pressed as to whether the Army National Guard would still fly the new C-27s, Schwartz replied, “How this is going to lay in and who’s going to do it is not yet a done deal.”
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border at the direction of President…