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| For
Immediate Release: March 3, 2004 |
Contact: |
Harald Stavenas |
Statement of
Chairman Roscoe Bartlett
Subcommittee on Projection Forces
Conventional Long-Range Strike Capabilities
Hearing
This afternoon we will receive testimony from the Congressional Research Service, the Joint Staff, the Air Force, and the Navy, on the Department of Defense's long-range conventional strike capabilities.
While the United States enjoyed access to well-established military bases in Europe, the Persian Gulf, North East Asia and South East Asia during the Cold War, finding adequate forward bases from which to project forces with shorter ranges may be difficult to do in areas where threats are beginning to emerge. In Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the lack of regional bases limited the effectiveness of land-based tactical aircraft. As a result, Air Force long-range bombers and Navy and Marine Corps carrier-based aircraft dropped most of the bombs and conducted most of the combat sorties. More recently, the inability to access, or fully access, bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia complicated U.S. air operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom, making those forces capable of operating over long distances, or from sea bases, much more valuable.
Today's conventional long-range strike capabilities are formidable. They include 96 B-1, B-2, and B-52 combat-ready bombers, but our bomber forces are aging. For example, the 44 combat-ready B-52s average over 40 years of age. Our long-range cruise missile inventory includes the Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile, or CALCM, which is launched from the B-52, and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, or TLAM, which can be launched from Navy surface ships or submarines. However, after firing over 800 TLAMs in Operation Iraqi Freedom, our TLAM inventories need to be replenished. Today's Naval aviation aircraft force structure includes 10 active, and one Reserve, Navy carrier air wings. It also includes three active, and one Reserve, Marine air wings. Under the Navy - Marine Corps Tactical Air Integration Plan, the total number of primary authorized strike fighter aircraft in the Department of the Navy is being reduced from 872 down to 660.
While we will have less actual force structure in the future, the new F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and Joint Strike Fighters will certainly provide a more capable carrier air wing than the F-14s, and F-18As and Cs of today. Similarly, modifications to our bomber force, and new weapons such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, can provide improved long-range strike capabilities. As we look across the menu of conventional long-range strike options in the Air Force and the Navy, the question becomes whether we are investing the right way to maintain and improve the Department of Defense's capabilities to conduct conventional strikes against distant targets in this era of limited and uncertain access to land bases.
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