JULY 15 (LPAC)--The U.S. Air Force has quietly boosted its force presence inside Iraq and vastly expanded its combat operations since the beginning of the year, in one of the most significant but least reported features of the Bush Administration's ``surge'' plan for defeating the Iraqi insurgency. But according to an Associated Press report of July 14, datelined Balad Air Base, Iraq, the USAF is also planning to stay in Iraq for the long haul. The Air Force is building up a massive air traffic control center called ``Kingpin,'' 50 miles north of Baghdad; has hardened the runways at Balad for another five to seven more years of hard use; has added a squadron of A-10 Warthog attack planes at Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq; and has introduced a new generation of fighter jets, F-16Cs, for the first time into the Iraq theater. In tandem with the Air Force buildup, the Navy has deployed a second aircraft carrier group into the Persian Gulf on a semi-permanent basis, and has reintroduced B1-B bombers into the Iraqi theater of operation. An undisclosed number of B1-Bs were redeployed at the end of 2006 from the distant Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, to a secret location in the Persian Gulf area. According to USAF statistics cited by AP, since the beginning of 2007, the number of bombs and missiles fired inside Iraq has increased five-fold over 2006.

In addition to the direct combat missions, the Air Force is playing an increasing role in ``ISR''--intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, expanding the use of Predator drones, U2s and AWACS. The AWACS have been brought back to the Iraq theater after three years absence. Lt. Gen. Gary North, the regional air commander, admitted that the Air Force expects to still be actively involved in the Iraq conflict long after American ground troops have been withdrawn. At this point, the Iraqi Air Force consists solely of a small number of cargo and reconnaissance planes--no combat aircraft.

The AP story focused exclusively on the Iraq situation, not even mentioning the prospective use of the expanded U.S. Air Force capacity in the event of Cheney's preventive war against Iran.