US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday launched a push for more drones, complaining that the military is not moving aggressively to meet battlefield needs. In a blunt speech at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, Gates called on the air force and other services to re-think their priorities in an age of asymmetric warfare.
"My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield," Gates told the audience of air force officers.
"I've been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets into the theater. Because people were still stuck in old ways, it's been like pulling teeth," he said. Gates said he has formed a Defence Department task force to quickly come up with innovative ways to provide more drones and other operational intelligence gathering assets into the field.
A Pentagon spokesman said the task force, which was formed late last week, will be reporting back to Gates at 30 day intervals on the progress. The military currently has some 5,000 "unmanned aerial vehicles," or UAVs, of varying types and sizes, but commanders' demand for them has outstripped their availability.
Gates likened the initiative to a crash program he set in motion last year to acquire and deploy mine-resistant armoured vehicles, MRAPs, which the army had been reluctant to field even though they offered soldiers better protection than armoured Humvees.
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