So, it sounds like private contractors are going to watch bodies blow up in real time rather than people in the military. But likely, they will be better paid than the military professionals too?
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WASHINGTON — The American military’s extensive use of drones against the
WASHINGTON — The American military’s extensive use of drones against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups has resulted in a shortage of Air Force
pilots and other personnel to operate the aircraft, leading the
Pentagon to rely more on private contractors for reconnaissance missions
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used contractors to
perform many duties traditionally carried out by uniformed personnel,
like protecting military bases and feeding service members. The
contractors who are now serving as drone pilots are based in the regions
where the drones are flown, and they are legally prohibited from being
“trigger pullers” and firing weapons, Air Force officials said. But
there is no limit on the type of reconnaissance they can perform, and
they are providing live video feeds of battles and special operations.
As
the Obama administration has accelerated its campaign against the
Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and Libya over the past 10 months, the
Pentagon has added four drones flown by contractors to the roughly 60
that are typically flown every day by uniformed Air Force personnel.
Over
the next two years, the Pentagon plans to add six more operated by
contractors, the officials said. The number and identities of
contractors working on the drone flights are considered classified
information, the Air Force said. But Pentagon officials said there at
least several hundred contractors, many of them former drone or fighter
pilots who are making double or triple their military salaries.
“This
is opening up a whole new can of worms — we have seen problems with
security contractors on the battlefield since 9/11, and there’s been an
improvement in oversight in that area, but that came after a decade of
problems,” said Laura A. Dickinson,
a law professor at George Washington University, who has written
extensively about the United States’ use of military contractors. “With
drones, this is a new area where we already do not have a lot of
transparency and with contractors operating drones there’s no clearly
defined regime of oversight and accountability.”
Drones
were first used extensively by the United States military in the
Balkans in the 1990s. By the mid 2000s, the Air Force was flying more
than a dozen drones a day in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
The number of flights rose steadily to about 60 in 2010, when the
military began plans to scale back because the war in Iraq was winding
down.
But
in 2014, President Obama ordered a stepped-up military campaign against
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Later that year, Mr. Obama, who
had said that a small number of troops remaining behind in Afghanistan
would have no combat role, decided to authorize a more expansive mission
for them.
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The
Air Force was not prepared for this increased demand. Finding pilots
was difficult. They typically work long hours in windowless rooms
staring at computer monitors and do not get many days off. Many of those
who fly armed drones have been found to have post-traumatic stress
disorder because they have witnessed so many airstrikes. There is also a
powerful perception in the Air Force that drone jobs are less
prestigious and glamorous than flying more traditional military
aircraft, and recruitment has been hard.
The
pilots have also become targets for terrorists who say drones have been
used to indiscriminately kill civilians. This past spring, the Islamic
State released a detailed list of several dozen senior Air Force
officers who the group said were connected to the drone program. The
list included photographs of the officers, their home addresses and
other personal information.
Operating
drones requires an extensive support network. One pilot and a camera
operator typically control a drone, and since a drone is expected to be
constantly in the air, each one must have several crews. The analysis of
the footage taken in by the drones is even more labor intensive. For
every drone, there is a need for up to four dozen analysts who can look
at the many hours of footage to assess the targets and other
intelligence.
With
little alternative, the Air Force initiated a “get-well plan” in
January 2015 that included several measures — among them an increase in
pay — to try to alleviate the significant “stress on the force” that had
developed.
“Airmen
have delivered time-critical data, prosecuted targets and supported
combatant commanders without fail but we cannot sustain this pace
indefinitely,” Deborah Lee James,
the secretary of the Air Force, said at the time. “While threats have
evolved, the demand for this capability remains constant.”
Both
armed drones and those only involved in surveillance have led to
significant success on the battlefield, but the Obama administration has
been widely criticized for not being transparent about their use.
Air
Force officials said there are many safeguards in place to train and
monitor contractors. But the officials declined to provide many details
about the flights, including where the contractors are deployed and
which companies are operating the flights.
The
officials also declined to address the role that contractors play in a
select group of highly classified drone flights that the Air Force
conducts on a daily basis for the C.I.A. Air Force pilots, who are
essentially on loan to the C.I.A., fly those drones while the agency
does its own preflight target planning and post-mission analysis.
Erika
Yepsen, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said the missions flown by the
contractors “have oversight from both a government flight
representative and a government ground representative.”
She
added: “Additionally, planning and execution of these missions are
carried out under the same oversight currently provided for military
aircrews, and the resulting sensor information will be collected,
analyzed, transmitted and stored as appropriate by the same military
intelligence units.”
But
the Air Force would not disclose many details about the drone
contractors. Contractors are typically compensated far more than service
members, and some current and former senior Air Force officials said
that their use could actually exacerbate the shortage in military drone
pilots because the pay of the private sector may lure them away.
“The
Air Force is the one creating unmanned pilots who have experience —-
there is no where else to draw on pilots from,” said Frederick F.
Roggero, a retired major general.
Mr. Roggero, after his Air Force career, became president and chief executive of Resilient Solutions, which provides consulting on unmanned aircraft safety and security. He compared the situation to after World War I.
“We
are at the same point now culturally – the only pilots with drone
experience are coming from the Air Force and that industry is going to
experience exponential growth for unmanned pilots,” he said, adding that
it would create a new demand that will lure them away from the
military.
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