US Has No Comment On Rahim Wardak's Shopping List

By ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

Afghanistan once had a powerful air force with fighter planes, attack helicopters and transport machines. Indeed, I saw evidence of it everywhere I went in that country: hangars shredded by AC-130 fire, fighters left derelict, jet pilots working as privates in the Army. Between the civil war, the end of Russian aid (all military types were of Soviet origin), and the Coalition blitzkrieg of 2001, nothing was left but souvenirs.

If the new Afghan Minister of Defense, Rahim Wardak, has his way, Afghan pilots will be taking to the skies again, soon. First, perhaps, in Afghan machines that were impounded in neighboring countries during the war -- Wardak asked for their return two weeks ago, and all the bordering nations are expected to cooperate to some degree -- and then, in new American types.

Specifically, Wardak wants the two machines that have proven themselves against the holdout Taliban and renegade warlords that still bedevil his country, the A-10 Warthog, and the AH-64 Apache gunship. The AH-64 has been widely exported, but the A-10, which came of age during the Carter administration's attempts to rein in arms exports, has not been.

From Wardak's point of view it would be good for the USA as well as for his own country: "We think if we take more of the burden of security it will be much more economical -- in terms of money and human life -- for the coalition and NATO," he told the Associated Press.

Wardak also wants transport planes, and armored vehicles; and he has asked the Coalition to step up training of specialty units: commandos, engineers and intelligence troops. He's quite satisfied with the training of regular Army units, which is well ahead of schedule.

The two aircraft that Wardak has requested by name are the two types that have been most effective in fighting the mountain guerillas. The A-10 was developed in the 1970s as a tank-buster for the European theater; it fulfilled its destiny in the first Gulf war, where every third sortie yielded a destroyed enemy vehicle, on average. Air Force brass runs hot and cold on the decidedly subsonic (380 kt flat out) A-10, but ground troops swear by them. Over 700 were made, and about 300 remain in service today; the airplanes were built so long ago that many repair parts are hand-crafted in Air Force shops at Hill AFB, Utah. It is armed with a tank-killing cannon and 11 hard points that will accept almost anything in the US or NATO inventory.

The AH-64 Apache is the nearest thing to a rotary-winged equivalent of the A-10. While its combat record has been mixed, with a large number shot up (and shot down) in the most intense phases of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has a very good record for keeping its crew alive to fight again. It is armed with a smaller, but deadly accurate, automatic cannon and has stations on its stub wings for a variety of rockets and missiles.

These sophisticated combat planes are currently called up and controlled by the American or Coalition trainers embedded with Afghan units. To make proper use of them, Afghanistan needs more than just planes. It needs an entire infrastructure of command, maintenance, and communications. It needs a counterpart of the US Air Force Combat Control Teams or Enlisted Terminal Air Controllers, which is a capability that even the USA only evolved relatively recently.

There has been no official response from the USA to Minister Wardak's request. Wardak, however, expressed confidence that the request would be answered positively.

FMI: www.centcom.mil