A Congressionally chartered panel tasked with reviewing procedures at the US Air Force Academy following numerous allegations of sexual assault upon female cadets found several systemic problems with the way the academy is run and overseen, according to its report, released Sept. 22.

The independent panel led by former Rep. Tillie K. Fowler determined that many of the problems at the academy can be traced back to lack of sustained attention when evidence of problems emerged in the past.

“Regular turnover of Air Force and academy leadership, together with inconsistent command supervision and a lack of meaningful and effective external oversight, undermined efforts to alter the culture at the academy,” the panel’s final report determined.

Since 1993, the panel found, there have been 142 allegations of sexual assault at the academy. The sexual assaults and rapes are believed to be widely underreported.
The report noted that many of the problems are being addressed through the Air Force’s “Agenda for Change,” implemented this spring, but the panel views it only “as the initial step in reversing years of institutional ineffectiveness.”

The panel said the agenda does not address the need for “permanent, consistent oversight” by Air Force headquarters, nor does it improve the external oversight by the academy’s Board of Visitors. The panel said that oversight has not been productive.

The agenda also eliminated the academy’s confidential reporting policy for sexual misconduct, which could have the unintended effect of further suppressing sexual assault reports, according to the panel.

Fake BRAC E-mail Debunked

After being alerted to a falsified e-mail that purported to list facilities facing closure or realignment in 2005, the Air Force quickly moved to dispel the hoax.

“The e-mail takes a legitimate Air Force Print News story titled ‘Air Force Releases 2004 Realignments’ ... and adds a fake list of Department of Defense installations” supposedly facing base realignment and closure actions, service officials said.

Air Force officials noted that the “ongoing BRAC process is nowhere near complete.”
As part of the department’s 2005 budget justification, DOD will prepare a series of reports showing the need for a 2005 BRAC round, and these certifications will not be complete until around February 2004, an official said.

Isabel Forces Evacuations

Hurricane Isabel forced the evacuation of not only aircraft but also personnel from Langley AFB, Va., when the low-lying base fell in the storm’s path. Langley officials say 60 F-15 Eagles were evacuated to Grissom Joint Air Reserve Base in Indiana on Sept. 16. They returned to the Virginia base Sept. 21.

Aircraft evacuations from Langley are not unusual because of the base’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and runways that have an elevation of only 11 feet above sea level. More unusual was the personnel evacuation, which had not happened “in quite some time,” said a base spokeswoman.

Approximately 6,000 airmen and their families were evacuated from Langley on the 16th and were cleared to return Sept. 20.

Initial estimates are that the base may have suffered more than $200 million in damage from Isabel, primarily from flooding.

USAF Reviews Museum Policies

The Air Force on Aug. 28 announced that it has formed a group to review the operational procedures used by the US Air Force Museum at Wright–Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The assessment group will include civilian experts in museum operations.

The announcement came after a series of articles in the Dayton Daily News reported on a March 21, 2002, audit of the museum that found about 1,000 artifacts were missing. The Air Force Audit Agency’s area audit office at Wright–Patterson, found that museum personnel “did not always effectively manage museum property.”

Scott A. Ferguson, the museum’s former chief of collections, is under indictment in US District Court in Dayton, for allegedly selling an armored car in 1999 that he knew had been stolen from the museum in 1996.

The 2002 audit is the second critical review of the museum. The Daily News reported that a June 1996 audit found that “museum personnel did not adequately manage the acquisition, registration, and documentation of weapons.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Charles D. Metcalf, the museum’s director, told the newspaper that the number of missing items had been reduced to 510. He said that is a “low error rate” for a museum that maintains more than 57,000 artifacts.

The USAF review group plans to examine whether the museum’s procedures “meet or exceed recognized professional standards of comparable museums,” an Aug. 29 Air Force release stated.

Recruiting Holding Up

Air Force recruiting levels are holding up so far. Each of the Defense Department’s four military services is on course to meet year-end recruiting goals.

Officials are reluctant to forecast what the long-term impact of continuing operations in Iraq will have on recruiting or retention, saying it’s too early to tell.

Officials credited the hard work of recruiters and the rise in patriotism coupled with a downturn in the economy for helping to keep the recruiting picture rosy.

The Air Force met its recruiting goal of 37,000 new airmen before the end of Fiscal 2003, the fourth consecutive year the service has met its target.

Israel Wary of Saudi F-15 Basing

Israel asked the United States to intervene to help ensure that Saudi Arabia moves F-15s recently deployed to the northwest corner of the Arab nation to a location farther from Israel.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel was concerned the F-15Ss based at Tabuk, about 100 miles from Israel, could be used for a quick-strike attack against the Jewish state. The Saudi Arabian fighters, purchased from the US in 1991, have traditionally been based much farther from Israel.

Israel has long been concerned about US military sales to potentially hostile neighbors with which the country has fought a series of wars. Although Israel is generally supplied with top-notch American equipment, the US has also supplied advanced F-16s to Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft to Saudi Arabia, among other sales.

A 26-Nation Army

The European Union, this summer, deployed its own army for the first time, when it sent a 400-person contingent to Macedonia to participate in peacekeeping operations. This first-ever deployment for an EU force, known as EUFOR, contained troops from 26 nations—only half of them actually EU members. Six participating nations were non-EU NATO members, including Turkey.

Within the EU, however, the mission was seen as a precursor for more ambitious military operations. Asked in September whether this EU force competed with NATO and the new NATO Response Force, Gen. Charles F. Wald, deputy commander of US European Command, said probably not.

“The NATO Response Force will be, frankly, much more capable ... and probably more viable,” Wald told the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C.

“I think the NATO Response Force will be the force of choice,” he added, though, if NATO elects not to take on a particular mission, “then the EU [members] can do their job.”

Airman Arrested for Espionage

SrA. Ahmad I. Halabi, who had been working as a translator with Taliban and al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested on charges he was spying for Syria. Halabi’s arrest was part of a spate of recent investigations of personnel at Guantanamo Bay.

Halabi, who is a native of Syria and moved to the US as a teenager, was apprehended July 23 and is being held in pretrial confinement at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. A Sept. 24 Air Force release stated an Article 32 hearing, similar to a grand jury process, was held Sept. 15-18.

Halabi is accused of attempting to deliver to Syria more than 180 notes from prisoners that “concerned intelligence gathering and planning for the United States’ war against terrorism,” among many other actions listed on a six-page charge sheet, stated the release.

Also recently arrested was Army Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain working with the detainees at the Naval facility. Yee was arrested Sept. 10 on suspicion of espionage. A third arrest involved former Army Pvt. Ahmed F. Mehalba, a civilian interpreter, also working at the Guantanamo facility. Mehalba was arrested Sept. 30 for making false statements to investigators when allegedly found with computer disks containing classified information about the terrorist holding area at Guantanamo.

Boeing Wins SDB Contract

Boeing beat out rival Lockheed Martin to develop and produce the Small Diameter Bomb, a next generation, Global Positioning System guided precision weapon.

The SDB is a 250-pound-class munition that will be fielded first on the F-15E Strike Eagle. The contract value is estimated to be $188 million, but the value could increase with additional future purchases.

The Small Diameter Bomb is one of the Air Force’s top weapons priorities because it will enable a single aircraft to hit larger numbers of individual targets on one sortie than is currently possible. It will also reduce the potential for collateral damage because of its smaller warhead size.

Russian Nuclear Sub Sinks

A decommissioned Russian nuclear submarine sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea Aug. 30, killing nine of the 10 sailors aboard. The sub was being towed to a scrap yard during a storm when it went under.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet after the incident. The Moscow Times reported that Russian Navy chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov said safety rules were disregarded when the sub was moved with the storm in the forecast.

Russian officials say there was no radiation leakage from the vessel, which had roughly 1,765 pounds of spent nuclear fuel in its two reactors. The sub came to rest 787 feet under water.

Aeromedical Evac in Bulgaria

Air Force officials set up an expeditionary aeromedical evacuation facility in Bulgaria in September, to train for contingencies with NATO partners.

The 86th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron out of Ramstein AB, Germany, established a medical facility to improve alliance interoperability as part of Exercise Cooperative Key 2003, USAF officials said.

The 86th AES is one of four squadrons in the Air Force able to set up such a facility, which would be used to quickly process and remove injured troops from a war zone.

Exercises such as Cooperative Key have paid off before, Air Force officials said. During Operation Enduring Freedom, a similar facility in Pakistan began processing patients within 30 minutes of the squadron hitting the ground, said SSgt. Marc Nelson, medical technician for the facility.

News Notes
By Tamar A. Mehuron, Associate Editor

USAF awarded Boeing a $56 million satellite project Aug. 29, waiving its suspension of the company’s bids for new space contracts. In July, USAF suspended Boeing from future contract bidding because of ethics violations during the 1998 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle competition. (See “Washington Watch,” September, p. 8.)
FAA officials approved a national certificate of authorization Aug. 21 for USAF’s Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The certification grants easier access to national airspace for training and military exercises.

USAF will receive its first panoramic night vision goggles for pilots in 2004, according to Aerospace Daily. The new goggles offer a 100-degree field of view rather than the current 40-degree views.

This fall, USAF plans to replace airmen with civilian contractors to handle air traffic control duties at four bases supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Many of the critical ATC positions have been manned by Air National Guardsmen, who will now be able to rotate to their home stations. The bases are: Bagram AB and Kandahar AB, Afghanistan; Karshi-Khanabad AB, Uzbekistan; and Ganci AB, Kyrgyzstan.

The Air Force Academy’s TG-14 motorized gliders began flying again Aug. 27. Brig. Gen. Johnny A. Weida, the new 34th Training Wing commander, grounded the 34 motorized gliders May 16 to “address leadership and cultural issues in the 94th Flying Training Squadron, as well as glider operations guidance shortcomings,” stated an academy release.

An Air Combat Command accident report released Sept. 2 concluded that a major flight control malfunction caused an F-15E to crash June 4 during a training mission. The pilot and instructor pilot ejected safely. The aircraft crashed in woods west of Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C.

USAF awarded $4 million contracts each to industry teams led by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman for the initial design of the Battle Management Command and Control suite for the E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft. The sole winner will be selected in April 2004.

Russia plans to provide Belarus with advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to help protect Russia’s western borders, according to the Moscow Times. The deployment is part of a 1996 agreement to develop political, military, and economic ties.

A prototype booster successfully lifted off from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., Aug. 16, as part of the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense program. It was a ground-based interceptor prototype.

The last Titan IVB rocket combined with a Centaur upper stage launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sept. 9, carrying a National Reconnaissance Office satellite. Following this launch, there are three Titan IV boosters and one Titan II left in Lockheed Martin’s inventory.

Pratt & Whitney workers completed assembly of the first F135 engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Sept. 12. Completion of the engine came less than two years after the initial contract award. First flight of the F-35 is slated for 2005.

USAF awarded a six-member industry team an information warfare contract worth up to $252 million. The five-year contract from the Air Force Information Warfare Center, Lackland AFB, Tex., went to Titan Corp., SAIC, Computer Sciences Corp., Macauley Brown, Veridian Information Solutions, and Adtech Systems.

An F-16 crashed into the Yellow Sea Sept. 9 southwest of Kunsan AB, South Korea. The pilot ejected and was recovered safely. The cause of the accident is being investigated.

Robins AFB, Ga., is the first USAF base to test an alternative fuel cell to generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. It is one of 30 bases to test DOD’s plan for developing an alternative fuel source.

Air Reserve Personnel Center officials announced Sept. 4 the line and health professions selection of 368 officers out of 542 considered for in-the-zone promotion to lieutenant colonel, for a selection rate of 67.9 percent. Last year’s rate was 72.6 percent, with 595 officers selected from 820.

Four individuals on Aug. 28 received the 2003 Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Award. They were: John Herther, a former USAF lieutenant whose 1950s engineering design of a three-axis stabilization system contributed to the Agena rocket for the Corona reconnaissance program; retired Brig. Gen. Martin Menter, an early leader in space law; retired Col. Albert Wetzel, director of the early Titan ICBM program; and retired Navy Capt. Robert Truax, who contributed to ICBM and military satellite system development in the 1950s.

The National Aeronautical Association honored the Civil Air Patrol as a Champion of Public Benefit Flying for 2003—a new award, and one of only five presented by NAA. The award recognizes outstanding community service. This year, CAP has already flown more than 15,000 hours, many in response to the shuttle Columbia disaster.