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Washington Pulse
NATO Commander: Send More Spy Planes to Afghanistan
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By Sandra I. Erwin
The U.S. military has deployed thousands of unmanned surveillance aircraft to war zones, but not nearly enough went to Afghanistan, laments Army Gen. Bantz John Craddock, head of U.S. European Command. “We need full-motion video, persistent surveillance,” he says. “In Afghanistan, availability of UAVs is hit-or-miss.” The shortage of spy aircraft means NATO forces can’t adequately monitor drug traffickers, convoys or the Iranian borders, Craddock says. And it gets worse. Craddock also worries that, as defense spending by NATO allies declines, they will abandon Afghanistan. NATO nations are asked to spend 2 percent of GDP on security.
Of the 26 nations, only six meet that benchmark, he says. Unlike the U.S. military, which has received hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency funding, all other NATO forces live under strict budgets. “Supplementals is an unknown term in those nations,” says Craddock.
“We are going to have some hard times.”
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