Air Force to end ‘22 with no public data on Middle East air operations
Posted by M. C. on January 2, 2023
Making America safe…somehow.
The Air Force will end 2022 without releasing any public data on the scope of air operations conducted in the Middle East this year.
The decision limits the transparency of American troops’ continued involvement in Iraq and Syria, amid dwindling public interest and shrinking military resources in the region.
“At this time, [Air Forces Central Command] is not releasing data specifying sortie type or weapons release,” spokesperson Capt. Kayshel Trudell said Tuesday.
Trudell declined to answer why AFCENT has again stopped publishing that information. She referred further questions to U.S. Central Command, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Since 2012, AFCENT — which provides Air Force aircraft and personnel to the broader combat effort in the Middle East — has published monthly tallies of airstrike and surveillance flights, munitions dropped, jet fuel used and other metrics to measure the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
The updates went on hiatus from March 2020 to December 2021, when the Air Force belatedly posted nearly two years’ worth of missing air war statistics. The military had said it was withholding the monthly updates amid peace talks with the Taliban.
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