U.S. Looks at New Ways to Supply Troops in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2011 — The Unit­ed States must study ways to resup­ply troops in Afghanistan if Pak­istan clos­es the sup­ply cor­ri­dor through that coun­try, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s choice to lead U.S. Trans­porta­tion Com­mand told the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee today.

Air Force Gen. William M. Fras­er III tes­ti­fied before the com­mit­tee as part of his con­fir­ma­tion process. He cur­rent­ly leads the Air Force’s Air Com­bat Com­mand, and would suc­ceed Air Force Gen. Dun­can McN­abb at Transcom. 

If con­firmed, I look for­ward to join­ing the Unit­ed States Trans­porta­tion Com­mand fam­i­ly, the more than 145,000 men and women who are ded­i­cat­ed to deliv­er­ing, sus­tain­ing and then return­ing our forces,” Fras­er said in his open­ing state­ment before the committee. 

The sen­a­tors pressed Fras­er about resup­ply of Amer­i­can forces in Afghanistan. He said that some 35 per­cent of the car­go for Amer­i­can forces trav­els through Pak­istan. The rest moves along the north­ern sup­ply routes and via air­lift. If Pak­istan were to cut off that avenue, there would be a dis­rup­tion in sup­ply, the gen­er­al told the sen­a­tors. The pro­fes­sion­als at Trans­porta­tion Com­mand, in con­junc­tion with their com­pa­tri­ots at U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand, are work­ing to lessen any effects if the Pak­ista­nis close that route, he added. 

I know ongo­ing plan­ning is hap­pen­ing,” Fras­er said. “I know there would be a dis­rup­tion. But if con­firmed, I would delve deeply into that plan to ensure that any dis­rup­tion that we have is min­i­mal, to ensure that we con­tin­ue to pro­vide that effec­tive yet effi­cient sup­port to the warfighter.” 

The com­mand is work­ing, for instance, to devel­op intrathe­ater air­lift. He said Transcom is work­ing with coun­tries in the Per­sian Gulf for access to ports. Ships would deliv­er mate­r­i­al to the region, and intrathe­ater lift air­craft would take it to Afghanistan. 

Trans­porta­tion Com­mand is respon­si­ble not only for sup­ply­ing warfight­ers in direct com­bat with the ene­my, but also for mov­ing mil­i­tary fam­i­lies around the world. The com­mand – based at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. — coor­di­nates the Air Mobil­i­ty Com­mand, the Navy’s Mil­i­tary Sealift Com­mand and the Army’s Sur­face Deploy­ment and Dis­tri­b­u­tion Command. 

I know the crit­i­cal impor­tance of rapid, effi­cient and time­ly glob­al logis­tics,” he said. “I also under­stand at the heart of that capa­bil­i­ty is the inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty of thou­sands of men and women who real­ly make it happen.” 

Fras­er cred­it­ed McN­abb with chart­ing a vision for the com­mand based “on mak­ing our forces more effec­tive and more effi­cient through rapid and respon­sive glob­al logis­ti­cal solu­tions and inter­a­gency, non­govern­ment, com­mer­cial and inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships,” he said. “We will always deliver.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →