AFA Policy Forum

“Application of Special Operations Forces in the Global War on Terror”
Lieutenant General Michael W. Wooley
Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command
Air & Space Conference 2004—Washington, DC
September 14, 2004

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General Wooley: I often told people when I was Commander of 3rd Air Force that I had the best two star job in the Air Force, and I truly believe that. The forces that we had over there were just phenomenal. To leave that job and come to be the Commander of Air Force Special Operations Command … again, I think I've got the best three star job in the Air Force. It's just incredible.

I'd like to welcome you all here today. We're going to briefly do a once-over-the-world in Air Force Special Operations Command, just to bring you up to date on what's going on. Last night, we moved our command center from Hurlburt to Moody. If you've looked at the Weather Channel or any of the other news agencies you can see that Hurricane Ivan has got a bead on the panhandle of Florida. So our airplanes left a couple of days ago, the command center relocated last night, the folks are evacuating the base today. Families are heading for drier land. So please include all our military folks—not only deployed around the world, but in particular along that Gulf Coast region—in your thoughts and prayers.

It's a great honor for me to be here today to give you this Air Force Special Operations Command update. I see some special guests in the audience. Bob Patterson, who's a previous AFSOC commander. General Patterson, it's good to see you; and of course AFA Executive Director Don Peterson, welcome. Pat Condon, National President of AFA, it's always great to have you here. I'll tell you, I've got to compliment you on this year's format. It's absolutely superb and I think it's really the direction that we really need to go, so my hat's off to you. Major General John Dorse, one of our great Reserve general officers. I see Ro Bailey, who has the great honor of commanding the 435th Air Base Wing over at Ramstein Air Base. And all the other supporters of the Air Force—whether you're wearing this uniform of our nation, active duty, Air National Guard, Air Reserve, one of our great civilians, an Air Force Association member—you're all distinguished guests here with us today.

I am very happy to be here. When I was invited to speak to this august group I said, “well, what am I going to talk about?” We finally narrowed the topic down to the “Application of Special Operations Forces in the Global War on Terror.” My first reaction was that's going to be pretty easy because Special Operations are very, very heavily involved in winning this war on terror. However, the expanse of the possible discussion topics in itself kind of created a challenge. So where to begin?

I'd like to begin by saying that I'm very, very proud of each and every one of you. I'm very, very proud of all of our military men and women. Alongside each of us, they deploy in defense of America's national security and they willingly put their lives on the line for freedom every day. I'm here to tell you that every deployed Airman fighting this war knows why he or she is out there. They've not forgotten the 2,996 lives that were lost on 9/11.

9/11 really redefined some key concepts. Front lines and victory. It wasn't too long ago that a battlefield commander could point to a map and tell you exactly where the front lines were. Now, it's not that simple. Those lines are very blurred. The front lines of this war span the globe, as we all know. It's a non-linear battlefield, and when you combine that with the urban operations, it's really presented our nation and our military forces with some real challenges.

Victory used to mean the unconditional surrender of the enemy. As you know, the terrorists don't always subscribe to that definition. The terrorist definition of victory is often just the opposite. It's not losing. They see their continued existence as a victory. Even dying for their cause intentionally or voluntary is perceived as a victory. It’s a different paradigm than the traditional military concern for limiting casualties.

This definition really makes every newspaper article, online post, television news story, a victory for the terrorists. For this reason I want to emphasize a key point that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz made when he was testifying before the House Armed Service Committee on 10 August. He opened his remarks by qualifying that the military is only one of the four tools that the President has at his disposal while combating terrorism. Diplomatic, economic and informational tools are also very, very essential in achieving our national security strategy. The Department of Defense is an important component in winning this global war on terror, but it's only one of the facets that we have at our disposal today.

I'd also like to narrow my discussion down even further to the Air Force Special Operations Command and how we're organized and uniquely qualified, both in our Special Operations Forces and our combat rescue forces, to make significant contributions in the global war on terror.

The United States faces two distinct types of terrorist adversaries: states that sponsor terrorism and transnational terrorist organizations. This distinction is important for all of us to understand and it's particularly important for me to highlight as an SOF commander.

Our conventional U.S. military forces are very, very well trained, very well equipped to meet the challenge of defeating conventional forces of states that sponsor terrorism. However, our SOF forces are particularly valuable when it comes to combating transnational terrorist organizational threats. Together, the melding of our nation's military capabilities—ground, air, naval, space—and corresponding forces make us a very powerful team against any adversary. This team faces important challenges in fighting the global war and I'd like to focus on four of those today: adversary leadership, enemy capabilities, coalition warfare, and intelligence realities.

I'll begin by discussing these challenges and demonstrate how SOF enables our forces to meet them. I'll continue with a discussion of Combat Search and Rescue's role in this war, and conclude with some of the measures that we in Air Force Special Operations Command are taking to modernize our capabilities to better fight this war and to prepare for the conflicts of tomorrow.

First let's turn to adversarial leadership. The State Department annually produces a report on terrorism. It's entitled "Patterns of Global Terrorism." It lists states that sponsor terrorism, for example Iran, Syria, North Korea, and you can name several others. I can easily provide you the names of the national leaders of each of those three countries that I just named, but on the other hand, I can't give you a clear leadership picture for many of the terrorist organizations that we're fighting today. It's not that I don't want to know. I don't need to know everything we can know about the enemy's command and control structure, but the fact is that these are often small organizations with very fluid leadership structures. In fact, somebody characterized them as franchise organizations. I thought that was a pretty unique term.

When we kill or capture one of these leaders, another one steps in and quickly takes their place. Although the conventional Air Force does an outstanding job in finding, fixing, tracking, targeting, engaging, and assessing the fleeting target set that is this terrorist adversary of ours, creating a smoking crater in the ground has its drawbacks. I know you're all familiar with the old adage that “dead men tell no tales” and that's very true. SOF can not only remove a terrorist threat very effectively by using one of our AC-130 Gunships, but we can also provide the additional capability of pinpointing these groups, pinpointing these leaders, capturing them alive, and searching their location for sensitive information.

The ability to question some of the terrorists is invaluable. I won't disagree, we need to kill the biggest majority of them, but we do need to capture some of them. It's this ability that we have in special operations that helps us determine and eradicate terrorist organizations’ leadership.

For example, information that was acquired through a succession of SOF terrorist captures led us to Saddam. SOF not only will kill the terrorists, but we also capture terrorists. It aids our great Department of Defense to meet the terrorist leadership challenge.

Now let's turn to enemy capabilities. After identifying the enemy we need to know what they're capable of doing. For example, we need to know how many MiG-29 fighter airplanes that a country has, how many strategic surface-to-air missiles that are in North Korea, say, if the President should deem military action necessary. Both are important considerations and more telling, both are known variables.

Compare that to our knowledge of terrorist organization capabilities. The declassified 6 August 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, which is now infamous, is one example of the lack of actionable intelligence on al-Qaeda, only one month prior to the catastrophe of 9/11. I quote, "The CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives." That's not actionable intelligence and it stands as a grim reminder of intelligence realities of fighting this enemy.

SOF is specifically trained to help meet the challenge of acquiring just that actionable intel that we need. Your quiet professionals are stealthily working every day to ensure that the events of 9/11 never occur again.

This video is going to show you our Special Operations partners from the 75th Range Regiment training to kick down the door. I know many of you have seen videos on CNN and FOX News of U.S. forces searching Iraqi homes. Although our conventional forces can kick down the door as well as SOF can, finding the right door is a mission that SOF is trained and equipped to perform very well.

During the global war on terror operations, AFSOC’s Battlefield Airmen were on the ground with our Rangers and our other sister service Special Operations Forces. Those Battlefield Airmen were enabling air power to support these operations by making calls for fire, providing emergency medical support, producing tailored weather forecasts, and on and on and on. Our Special Operations MC-130 aircraft and MH-53 helicopters are specially modified to get SOF to the right door and when they need to be there. Our AC-130 airplanes are overhead to make sure that all the other doors stay closed.

We have put some special systems in our MH-53 Pavelow helicopters to enable them to receive near-time information updates on both enemy activity and friendly locations. AFSOC has used this capability in combat to save lives and acquire high value targets in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, Army Special Operations operating in northern Iraq in April of 2003 requested an immediate Ex-Fill. Two of our AFSOC MH-53s launched and then lost all communications when they were en-route to the team.

The only reason that our MH-53s got there on time, and they did get there on time, was because of our Blue Force Tracking capability that puts digital data right into the cockpit of the airplane. The MH-53s flew to the location where their Multi-Mission Advanced Tactical Terminal, or MATT Radio (it's a UHF radio that provides over-the-horizon communication of this digital data) told them exactly where the Special Operations team was located. They flew to the point and landed and Ex-Filled them.

SOF also provides expertise in exploiting the information available at a hit location. SOF provides invaluable information on terrorist organization capabilities by searching through their stuff. Items in the location can reveal both weapons that terrorists have available and they've also provided insight into future terrorist operations.

SOF's site exploitations located videos in Afghanistan in 2001 that positively connected Al-Qaeda to the 9/11 attacks, and six months ago we discovered an advanced surface-to-air missile location in northern Iraq and alerted the air component to an increased risk to our coalition air operations.

SOF's ability to capture a terrorist and search the premises does come at a cost, however, and the risk to U.S. personnel is much greater in this scenario than the one that we present by transforming the building into a hole in the ground. For that reason, the Combined Forces Commander must weigh the risk against the reward every time that SOF forces operate.

Let me assure you that AFSOC forces have quietly operated many times prosecuting this global war on terror. This war is a coalition effort and it's terribly important as the global war on terrorism is just that—global. Although today our efforts are concentrated within a particular region, we'd be naive to assume that today's snapshot of terrorist concentrations will remain the same tomorrow. It would be both strategically impossible and irresponsible to have a large U.S. presence within all parts of the world. We simply don't have the manpower. We don't have the logistical infrastructure to support that magnitude of forward basing.

Coalitions, however, allow us a worldwide military and moral presence against the terrorists. While the coalition may agree completely on the big issues such as the need for the global war on terror itself, building consensus at the operational level requires both tact and the ability to compromise. Some would define ‘compromise’ as when both parties hate the solution. However, our coalition partners have some very serious operational concerns that we have to deal with.

For example, some of our coalition partners must often covertly support our operations in fighting the global war on terror. Political realities in their country may demand that their activities occur without any fanfare. We in AFSOC are uniquely capable to work with these coalition partners clandestinely and often our AFSOC folks are working with our coalition partners and no one even knows we're in the country. But we are there fighting this global war on terror and/or helping train the coalition partners countries to fight right alongside of us. By flying at night, low altitude, under the radar scope and in adverse weather conditions, we enable some of our coalition partners to silently remove transnational terrorist group members.

AFSOC gunships also provide precise, close air support to operations complementing our conventional Air Force capabilities. A 105 shell can pack quite a wallop and destroy a small vehicle or severely damage a building. However, compared to a 500 or a 2000-pound bomb, the small yield of a gunship shell, provides a very discreet weapon of choice.

[Video shown] This video shows a gunship targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan with its 40-millimeter canons. The building you see on the right is a mosque. You'll see vehicles exploding, but I can assure you that no buildings were hammered in the making of this video. [Laughter]

There's more to SOF than direct attack or shooting terrorists on the ground. SOF can also train our new coalition partners to fight the terrorist threat internally without U.S. aid.

This capability to engage the training is critical and AFSOC has a unit that's designed to do this. It's our 6th Special Operations Squadron. They're a combat aviation advisory unit and their mission is essential to building strong coalitions. These special operators work closely with our foreign air forces. The 6th trains, advises and aides our new coalition partners in integrating their forces into a coalition.

Last fall, Airmen from the 6th Special Operations Squadron traveled to Colombia. They trained the Colombian Air Force, UH-1 air crews in both daylight and night-time In-Fill, Ex-Fill operations. Our Battlefield Airmen work very closely with the Colombian police. They train the Colombians in making calls for fire from their UH-1 gunships carrying 50-caliber machine guns in both day and night operations. The Colombian police also practice making calls for fire with their AC-47 gunships. Their AC-47 is a modified DC-3 with two side-firing 50-caliber machine guns.

[Video shown] This final night video of a UH-1 landing is from a large Combat Search and Rescue exercise. Though called Special Operations Squadron, the 6th trains our new coalition partners in both SOF and Combat Search and Rescue mission areas, and they do it extremely well.

Operators from the 6th were in Uzbekistan on 9/11 for language immersion training. They used those relationships that they had been building up to establish U.S. basing rights enabling our SOF missions into Afghanistan when it was critically needed right after 9/11 in mere weeks instead of the normal months that it would take to get the overflight clearance basing rights and all those other things.

Coalition warfare requires creating special relationships and the 6th Special Operations Squadron personnel are deployed right now strengthening relationships with coalition partners. 6th Special Operations Squadron has already operated in ten countries this year, three of which they're still deployed to today.

Strong relationships result in strong coalitions. However, any coalition, as we all know, is only as strong as the resolve of the members. Coalition resolve is a critical facet of this global war that we're fighting. The tragic train bombing in Madrid on March 11, 2004, resulted in a Spanish election where the country voted out a government who stood firm against terrorists and voted in one who supported a more non-confrontational stance. Fast forward to July when the Philippine government decided to remove forces in exchange for a hostage release.

These events can only be taken as terrorist victories and set dangerous precedents for terrorist acts leading directly to coalition dissolution. Terrorist organizations understand the fragile nature of coalitions, so they also realize the value of shattering them.

Now, let's take a look at intelligence realities. Intelligence collection on enemy states focuses on identifying the capabilities of that country. For the large part, it meets our Air Force requirements. For many years, though, there's been a concern that intelligence collection capability basically rested in the ability to find a tank or an artillery piece hiding in a grove of trees.

The problem now becomes how to find individuals hiding in groups of people. U.S. forces are working closely with our coalition partners in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere that are searching for terrorists hiding among law-abiding citizens. This presents a huge problem for us.

Obviously, those terrorists don't wear badges or distinctive clothing so this means that our intelligence organizations are continually challenged to find the proverbial needle, not in the haystack, but hiding among other needles.

All intelligence is important, but we need more human tactical intelligence. Terrorist organization operational security practices in their very small size make human intelligence a critical enabler of operational success.

This intelligence collection often implies spy satellites, but we've gotten intelligence collection in AFSOC down to the paper airplane level. We've got combat controllers who are using unmanned aerial vehicles that weigh as little as two pounds and extend our Battlefield Airmen's situational awareness up to three miles away. Our combat controllers are calling in air strikes on terrorist concentrations along SOF team routes of travel far enough in advance to remove the threat before a firefight has the opportunity to break out. These tiny eyes in the sky enable air power to support our forces on the ground more responsively and results in coalition lives saved.

Here's a statistic from Operation Iraqi Freedom that may surprise you. Not a single SOF unit in Operation Iraqi Freedom that had an AFSOC combat controller who had one of these small UAVs was ambushed by enemy forces. That's pretty incredible, and a great testimony to those forces and these things that are being developed.

SOF is uniquely capable of meeting challenges of the global war on terror, however AFSOC also includes approximately 8,000 of our 20,000 Airmen who risk their lives and embody the motto "That others may live."

I'd like to now go into the strengths that our Combat Search and Rescue or CSAR forces bring to this conflict in the global war.

First, rescue is a force multiplier. Every time that one of our great Air Force crews flies an operational mission they know that these rescue forces stand ready to recover them if something should go wrong. The rescue HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters and our HC-130 Combat Kings have the ability as well to receive that near real time information that I was talking about earlier that updates and enables them to find isolated personnel if they should get trapped or their airplane goes down.

I'll share a rescue story from Operation Enduring Freedom. Rescue forces were sitting alert on June 12, 2002, and they launched in support of a possible aircraft crash. The initial information that we got indicated that a C-130 had crashed near an Afghan airfield and within 30 minutes two HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters launched.

Enroute, those air crews received reports of 30 to 40 Taliban that were operating in the area, and the air crew were also challenged by the high terrain in Afghanistan. There was extremely low lunar illumination that night. And for those of you who have flown on NVGs, you know that that high elevation and NVGs is a dangerous combination.

Forty-five minutes into the flight, they were informed that an Army Special Operations team was on-site and they reported that there were no survivors. The crew's spirits were lifted, though, about 20 minutes later when they were informed that seven survivors had been located. Upon arrival, an AFSOC AC-130 provided overhead cover while the two helicopters landed. Again, extremely challenging because of this low lunar illumination plus the flaming wreckage of the airplane really was wreaking havoc on the ability to see through the night vision goggles.

Both the landing and takeoffs were made in brownout conditions, but the good news is they recovered all seven of the survivors. Rescue and SOF work together so that others may live.

Unfortunately, there have been several other occasions where our rescue forces have needed to go into areas like that, and all were completed by SOF and CSAR crews in an outstanding fashion.

Our Combat Search and Rescue Forces have SOF-like capabilities as I alluded to earlier. Although both air commandos and rescue warriors have distinct missions, they share distinctive capabilities. Like SOF, CSAR can operate at night, under the radar scope, and to some extent in adverse weather. They're also specially trained to recover isolated personnel.

I'd like to emphasize the word ‘personnel.’ It's not just Air Force personnel because our rescue forces have saved the lives of not only Airmen but soldiers, sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and, in fact, during the course of the global war on terror, rescue forces often get called in to save coalition members and civilians as well.

I'll give you another story. Less than two months ago, rescue forces were preparing for a local training mission in Valdosta, Georgia, at Moody Air Force Base when they got a call from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center with a request for an immediate search and rescue launch. Coincidentally, there was a rescue C-130 that was planning to fly a training mission off the east coast of Georgia. Their mission was to do some training with the PJs, or para rescuemen, in water insertion operations.

The C-130 loaded up the same equipment that they had planned already for the training mission and 1,200 miles and 4.5 hours later, the rescue 130 was dropping those para rescuemen into the water next to a Chinese vessel.

Twenty-four hours earlier, one of the Chinese seamen on that vessel had been hit in the chest by a pulley. It actually put a hole in his chest, collapsing his lung and breaking a lot of ribs. The PJs spent the next 16 hours on board the vessel stabilizing the Chinese sailor. They kept him alive until a pair of our Air Force Reserve rescue helicopters out of Patrick Air Force Base arrived on the scene. Those two HH-60s hoisted the four PJs and the Chinese sailor on the airplane. They carried him to a hospital in Puerto Rico. The good news is, the Chinese sailor is alive today thanks to the heroics of that entire CSAR team.

Combat Search and Rescue forces demonstrate American resolve as well. They've been routinely called into action saving civilian lives during the course of the global war on terror, and in March 2003, our rescue forces launched at night under adverse weather conditions in order to save the lives of two Afghan children. The poor weather conditions combined with the high terrain resulted in the tragic loss of one of the rescue helicopters. Six Airmen died endeavoring to save the lives of two severely ill Afghan children. That story, while tragic, illustrates the courage of our rescue forces and their desire to save lives. It stands as a quiet testament of the American resolve to improve the lives of the Afghan people.

Winning the hearts and minds is a big part of this global war on terror, and we're well suited to do that as well. Our rescue forces are making this a goal. Not only a goal, but a reality.

The previous story is only one of many launches that I could recount to you to save a civilian life. The Afghan and Iraqi people see concrete evidence of the resolve of the American people and the U.S. military.

We'll celebrate one year of Rescue under AFSOC in two weeks, and I can assure you that moving those CSAR forces under AFSOC from ACC was the right move for Rescue and it was the right move for the Air Force. SOF and Rescue are again one family. You can go all the way back to World War II, when the first air commando group operated in Burma. They flew some of our first Special Operations airplanes and our first air rescue missions. They did it as an integrated SOF and CSAR team. We were a team then, and we're back as a team now.

Let me conclude this morning's discussion then we'll open it up to some questions by sharing some of the things that we're doing in AFSOC to make sure that our Special Operations Forces and the Rescue forces will be able to help win this war and be ready for OEF, OIF, and the next conflict; whatever, whenever and wherever it may be.

As we've seen throughout history, warfighting is often a catalyst for technological advancement. The military is always looking for that edge in battle and that edge always leads to success. AFSOC is working diligently on both air and ground systems that will allow us to maintain the edge for future global war conflicts.

AFSOC's Battlefield Airmen, the combat controllers, the pararescuemen and combat weather forces, enable air power to meet the requirements of the Joint Forces Commander. Combat controllers operated on 11,000-foot mountaintops in the AOR carrying over 160 pounds of equipment. In fact, if you heard Secretary Roche's address yesterday, he pointed out that fact as well. That's, quite frankly, too much to be lugging around when you're operating in that kind of terrain.

Secretary Roche and General Jumper have both made it a priority to improve the combat capability of our Battlefield Airmen and AFSOC is working very, very close with the Air Force Research Laboratory and other agencies to develop equipment that weighs about half of that 160 pounds, while increasing the combat capability of all the stuff that they carry in their backpacks.

Specifically, we're improving the coordination accuracy to truly provide precise targeting information through a laptop computer that digitally sends the coordinates wherever the combat controller on the ground puts his finger on that laptop, on the moving map display. It shoots it right into the command and control system, right into the airplane. It's an awesome capability.

AFSOC is also, as you heard earlier, the lead for the Air Force on small, unmanned aerial vehicles. If the UAV is smaller than a Predator, then AFSOC is the go-to force and we're the proponent to develop those things. We're working very hard to make sure that every combat controller that deploys deploys with one of those small UAVs.

Today, we've got about 150 of those small UAVs and this video shows you our smallest UAV, the BatCam. We're aggressively pursuing the acquisition of more of these systems and we've got 40 of the BatCams that you just saw landing right there. Our goal is to have one for every combat controller.

Secretary Roche, by the way, has flown that thing. I have not yet. I'm anxious to get out there. He says it's pretty intuitive and it's a great capability. As you saw from that video, it streams down to the combat controller. All you do is when the thing lands is change the batteries and it's ready to go again.

With another initiative which involves machine-to-machine datalinks, our combat controllers are closing in on the ability to pass target coordinates directly form their hand-held target designators through their laptop to the strike aircraft and the command and control facilities, decreasing the required time to get bombs on target from an average of 30 minutes to less than five, and we've demonstrated that capability in Operation Iraqi Freedom and are enhancing that capability for those of you who may be involved in JEFX that we just concluded. We had very, very successful follow-on tests of that capability.

The failed rescue attempt for the Iranian hostages in 1980 illustrated that the US military requires a very special aircraft, not just one that's specially modified as most of them that we have today are. We need a new aircraft that's capable of deep penetration behind enemy lines under the cover of one period of darkness. That was the thing that got us in the Iranian crisis. If we'd have been able to go straight into Iran in one period of darkness, our probability of success would have been very, very high. As you know, when we had to land in the desert to refuel, that's when the incident happened.

There was this requirement that resulted in the CV-22 and I'm happy to report that we're meeting the requirement of that airplane. The CV-22 can fly at speeds similar to a C-130, and then hover and land like a helicopter. It's a great capability for AFSOC to support our SOF forces in the field.

I just flew the MV-22 last week and again, it's a very intuitive airplane. Being a fixed wing guy primarily, I was a little concerned about hovering the airplane, but the transition from airplane mode to helicopter mode was great and the airplane is performing well.

I also had the opportunity to go out to Edwards Air Force Base and see the CV-22 variant being tested out there which will add our unique special operations thing we need to the airplane and get it on the line.

We're also working to develop aircraft to meet the mobility requirement of the future. The MX aircraft will meet the SOF insertion, resupply, and exfiltration mission and integrate many of the Air Mobility Command C-130 replacement capabilities. I see a bright future for both AFSOC and Air Mobility Command working together on this aspect of our next generation.

Along with the need to transform our C-130 mobility capability, we need to increase our gunship capability as well. To steal a phrase from General Hester, who was the previous AFSOC commander, “all God's children want a gunship flying over.”

During Operation Enduring Freedom, we increased the combat capability of every one of our gunships and, as I'm sure you know, we integrated a real-time video feed from Predator directly into the gunship which allowed real-time targeting and is a big success. Right now we're in the process of increasing our gunships inventory from the current 21 to 25. That should be completed by the summer of 2006.

The gunship is an amazing aircraft. However, the gunship cannot operate in high threat environments. It's still a 130. For that reason we need to have a transformational capability. We're currently researching a platform that will provide the same high quality close air support but also operate in all threat environments, both day and night. So stay tuned for new developments.

The HH-60 Pave Hawk is a very capable rescue platform, but our aging helicopter fleet combined with increasing threat capabilities make developing a new personnel recovery vehicle or PRV a necessity. We're still determining what aircraft will enable us to ensure that others may live well into the next years.

I'd like to leave you today with a thought. We spend billions of dollars every year upgrading our technology and improving our combat capability. However, General George Patton said it best. "Wars may be fought with weapons, but they're won by men. It's the spirit of the men who follow and the man who leads that gains the victory." It was true then and it's true now for the men and women of our great Air Force and our great military services.

Yesterday, we recognized the crew of the 711th Special Operations Squadron, one of our Air Reserve squadrons; we recognized our 41st Air Rescue Squadron in ceremonies yesterday; recognized the crew of Steel 7-1; recognized the crew of Steel 7-2; saw the 12 Outstanding Airmen come down those very steps last night. There were about three of those folks that had SOF connections, one that had Rescue connections. I'll tell you, that says it. That's what it's all about. It's our people. The folks that I am here to represent. I'm so very, very proud of them, I'm so very, very proud of our Total Force. We could not do the things that we do without the people that we have.

I've said it before and I'll say it again … No matter if you're in an active duty uniform, an Air National Guard uniform, Air Force Reserve, civilian, contractor, a great organization like AFA, it takes a team, a family, to prosecute this global war on terror. It's been going on for about 20 years. It's going to go on for about 20 more years. This thing is going to end and it's going to end in victory, I can assure you of that.

Have all the wild cards been dealt from this deadly deck? I don't think so. But I'll tell you, we are all up to the challenges.

I'm proud to serve this country and I know that you're proud to serve this country. I thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm really very proud of each and every one of you. I honor your service, I honor your commitment. My hat's off to you.

I think we've got some time for a couple of questions, so we'll open up the floor and talk about the things that I may have forgotten in these prepared remarks.

Q&A Session:

Q: Regarding the CV-22, can you comment briefly on some of the problems the plane has experienced during testing and evaluation?

General Wooley: The Secretary of the Navy just recently went out and flew that airplane. He was excited when he came back from that flight. General Jumper, Secretary Roche and my combatant commander, General Doug Brown, the USSOCOM Commander, are going to go out and fly the MV-22 here in a couple of weeks. In fact, General Brown is going to jump out of the airplane, so he's pretty excited about that. I don't know what it is about those Army guys and jumping out of airplanes, but it turns them on. [Laughter] But it is an awesome capability.

There's a lot of bad press, rightfully so, when the airplane was being developed, but those things have been overcome and I'm excited about the airplane. We really need that transformational capability that it gives us to be able to self-deploy and not to have to rely on the back of Air Mobility Command to get our SOF forces wherever and whenever we need to go is probably the biggest attribute of the airplane. The other is being able to go from an airplane mode at 250 knots to zero knots and land vertically. That is another awesome capability that we need. It's got a bright future.

Q: Can you comment on progress made between the military and different government agencies in sharing intelligence information?

General Wooley: This global war has done a lot to solidify the working relationship between the military and the various government agencies involved in intelligence collection. I heard General Brown in his testimony about a month ago on the Hill right after the 9/11 Commission Report. He got summoned to testify and he was asked a similar question, what's the relationship between the other departments, the other agencies, and he said then and I'm a firm believer of this, that we're closer now than we've ever been in the Department of Defense. We really do have that joint focus that was mandated to us in 1987. We've got a great relationship with the CIA. We're sharing more things than we ever have before. It will be interesting to hear, there's some testimony going on about the confirmation of the designate for the CIA today. It will be interesting to hear his testimony. But I think we're in better shape now than we have ever been.