NATO Starts Taking Control of Libya Operations

BRUSSELS - NATO on March 30 began to take command of Libyan air bombing operations from a U.S.-led coalition, as warplanes and other assets from several allies came under the military organization's control.

French Air Force Rafale jets, right and center, and a French Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jet are shown March 30 over the Mediterranean Sea. The jets are taking part in the military Libya operations, soon to be led by NATO. (Gerard Julien / Agence France-Presse)

"NATO aircraft are flying under NATO command in the Libyan sky," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.

"This is a phased process, which will be completed as soon as all allies and partners have transferred authority for their assets."
The 28-member alliance is gradually replacing the United States at the helm of aerial missions that have been conducted by U.S., French, British and other coalition planes since March 19 to protect civilians from Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces.
Britain, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands placed all or part of their military assets under NATO's authority on March 30, an alliance official said on condition of anonymity.
NATO's combined air operations centre in Poggio Renatico, northern Italy, transmitted flight plans to units involved in the aerial campaign, the official said.
A NATO diplomat has said that the alliance would effectively be in full command of the operations on March 31.
NATO has enforced an arms embargo off Libya's coast since last week and also is policing Libya's skies to prevent hostile jets from flying.
NATO agreed to take on the broader mission - strikes against forces threatening civilians - on March 27 after overcoming Turkish concerns about the air strikes and French reluctance to hand the lead to the alliance.

Solution for Piracy 'Scourge' Remains Elusive

The international maritime community has worked together on a number of issues to beat back the threat from Somali-based pirates, a U.S. State Department official said March 30, yet the number of attacks continues to rise.
"We are intensely reviewing our anti-piracy efforts," Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary for political-military affairs, told a Washington audience. "We are looking into many possible courses of action."

Shapiro ticked off several areas where the U.S. is searching for new or expanded actions.
"We must get a handle on the prosecution problem," he said. "The United States is now willing to consider pursuing some creative and innovative ways to go beyond ordinary national prosecutions, and enhance our ability to prosecute and incarcerate pirates in a timely and cost-effective manner."
In international forums, the U.S. is suggesting the creation of a "specialized piracy court or chamber" - in one or more regional states -to bring accused pirates to trial, Shapiro said, and is exploring ways "to expand incarceration capacity in the region."
The "lack of prison capacity is perhaps the most common reason nations decline to prosecute," he added, while the idea of a piracy court has been put forward in the Security Council at the United Nations.
A key focus, he said, is "to start targeting the higher financiers who are responsible" for the pirate gangs. "That is something we are going to make a priority."
"There are a lot of lessons to be learned from in the organized crime example that we think are applicable to pirates," Shapiro told a reporter after his address, sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "The goal is to move the necessary resources and lessons learned to attack the people who are benefiting from this."
Shapiro noted the effectiveness of privately hired armed guards on board merchant ships in deterring the pirates. "Not a single ship employing armed guards has been successfully pirated," he said.
Ships declining to comply with recommended security measures are particularly at risk, Shapiro said. "About 20 percent of ships off the Horn of Africa are not taking proper security actions. These 20 percent account for the overwhelming number of pirated ships."
Ransom payments encourage pirates to continue their activities, Shapiro said. "We continue to urge against paying ransom," he said, noting it only "makes piracy an increasingly lucrative proposition."

To-Date Costs of Libya Strikes: $550M

WASHINGTON - U.S. military strikes on Libya have cost $550 million so far, the Pentagon said March 29, adding that the tab was likely to increase another $40 million in the next few weeks.

A Harrier jet aircraft assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps’ 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit returns to the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge for fuel and ammunition resupply on March 21 while conducting air strikes in Libya. (Lance Cpl. Michael S. Lockett / U.S. Marine Corps)

Between March 19 and 28, the Defense Department spent more than 60 percent of the funds on munitions, such as missiles and bombs, with the rest going toward deploying troops and covering the costs of combat, including additional fuel needed for U.S. aircraft and ships.

U.S. troops fired at least 192 of the 199 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched against Libyan air defenses and command centers.
Each Tomahawk missile costs about $1.5 million, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Adm. James Stavridis told a congressional hearing, bringing total expenditures for munitions alone to nearly $300 million.
The United States has also launched 455 of the 602 laser-guided weapons used by the coalition over the same period.
"Future costs are highly uncertain," said Navy Cmdr. Kathleen Kesler, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Kesler estimated the Pentagon would spend another $40 million over the next three weeks as NATO assumes full control of coalition operations from the United States and U.S. forces gradually reduce their presence.
"After that, if U.S. forces stay at the levels currently planned and the operations continues, we would incur added costs of about $40 million per month," she told AFP.
U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said last week that the operational costs in Libya were negligible.
"Because we're not mobilizing or sending more forces forward, all of these are relatively minor increases in costs," he said, adding that the United States would easily replenish its stock of Tomahawk missiles, which currently counts 3,000 such munitions.

All F-35s Cleared To Resume Flight Tests

Faulty maintenance procedures were found to have caused the March 9 in-flight failure of the engine generators aboard an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, the program office said Friday night.

The first F-35C test aircraft comes in for a landing March 4. Grounded after a generator failure on another aircraft, the F-35C and all other Joint Strike Fighters now can resume flight operations. (Phaedra Loftis/Lockheed Martin via U.S. Navy)

Those procedures have now been revised, and the entire fleet of F-35s has been cleared to resume flight operations.

The problem was revealed when a U.S. Air Force F-35A test aircraft, numbered AF-4, suffered a failure of the generators during a test flight from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The test pilot was able to use the backup electrical generator to return safely to base.
In flight, the generator provides the aircraft's primary electrical power.
The configuration of the generator on AF-4 and other, newer F-35s was different than the original installation on the first test aircraft, and the problem was traced to the newer, or alternate, configuration. Test aircraft with the earlier configuration - three F-35As and four Marine Corps F-35Bs - were cleared on March 14 to resume flight operations.
Three other test aircraft - AF-4, BF-5 and CF-1, the first Navy F-35C - remained grounded, along with the first two low-rate initial production F-35As, while the investigation continued.
According to the program office, the investigation revealed that the maintenance procedure for the alternate engine starter/generator configuration allowed excess oil in the generator's lubrication system.
Even though previous procedures allowed a small amount of extra oil in the generator following servicing, extra oil churning inside a narrow air gap within the unit could cause internal temperatures to increase, the program office said. The high temperatures led to the generator failures.
The loss of flying time caused "no significant impact" to the flight test program or to production operations, the program office said Friday night, since the schedules are made up in anticipation of such delays. The Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy flight test programs "remain ahead of their monthly flight test schedules," according to the program office.
Under production by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, the JSF is being produced in three versions. The F-35A land-based strike fighter for the Air Force is undergoing testing at Edwards, while the F-35B short-takeoff-or-vertical-landing (VSTOL) version for the Marines and the F-35C carrier variant are being tested at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

Russia's Top General Says Libyan Air Strikes 'Failed'

MOSCOW - Russia's top general called air strikes in Libya unsuccessful on March 26 and gave his opinion that a ground operation would likely be needed to topple the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
"Air (strikes) as I see it have not given them results," the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, Gen. Nikolai Makarov told the Interfax news agency in Moscow.

"If their aim was to topple the regime of Gadhafi, then probably they will not manage without a ground phase," he was quoted as saying. "I would not rule it out."
He reaffirmed Russia's position that it would not take part in the international operation, saying that "there is not even any thought of this."
The general's comments came after Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, warned on March 26 that any ground operation would be classified as an occupation of Libya.
Earlier this week, a Kremlin foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, said Russia believed a ground operation would become inevitable if the air strikes got bogged down.
Russia abstained from last week's Security Council vote allowing a no-fly zone, while opting not to use its veto, and President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed concern about the "indiscriminate use of force."
Medvedev in a phone call on March 24 urged his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to avoid civilian casualties and to limit the international operation to the wording of the U.N. resolution.
But in a rare rift, Medvedev publicly rebuked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for using unacceptable language after the strongman premier harshly criticized the operation and compared it to a medieval call to crusades.

Israel to Deploy 'Iron Dome' Anti-Rocket System

ERUSALEM - Israel will deploy its "Iron Dome" multi-million-dollar missile defense system in southern Israel for the first time next week in the wake of rocket attacks from Gaza, officials said March 25.
"I authorized the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery of 'Iron Dome' for an operational trial," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.

The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent days, some of them striking deep into Israel.
The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive.
The system, developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with the help of U.S. funding, is designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells fired from a range of between four and 70 kilometres (three and 45 miles).
Each battery comprises detection and tracking radar, state-of-the-art fire control software and three launchers, each with 20 interceptor missiles, military sources said.
However, Barak said the deployment would be experimental and partial and complete protection could take years.
"The complete acquisition of Iron Dome will take a number of years, dependant on suitable funding," he said.
Militants in Gaza and those allied with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia have fired thousands of projectiles at Israel in the past.
The system will first be along the border of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, from where militants fired a daily barrage of home-made rockets prompting Israel to launch a devastating 22-day offensive in December 2008.
It will then be deployed along the Lebanese border, from where Hezbollah militants fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006 war. It was that experience which prompted the development of Iron Dome.
Israel believes Hezbollah now has an arsenal of some 40,000 rockets.
In May, U.S. President Barack Obama asked Congress to give Israel 205 million dollars to develop the system, on top of the annual $3 billion Israel receives from Washington.
Iron Dome will join the Arrow long-range ballistic missile defense system in an ambitious multi-layered program to protect Israeli cities from rockets and missiles fired from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Syria and Iran.
A third system, known as David's Sling, it currently being developed with the aim of countering medium-range missiles.

Qatar Becomes First Arab State to Overfly Libya

DOHA - Qatari warplanes have flown over Libya, becoming the first Arab state to take part in military operations to enforce a no-fly zone under a U.N. resolution, its air force announced March 25.
The air force said an undisclosed number of planes had "overflown sister Libya as part of the international coalition" to enforce the no-fly zone imposed on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces "to protect civilians."

It did not specify a date for the start of Qatari operations nor a location for the first flights, in a brief statement carried by state news agency QNA.
But two Qatari Mirage jet fighters and a C-17 Globemaster transport plane landed on March 22 in Cyprus for refueling on their way to deployment. State television said they were headed for a U.S. air base on Crete.
The United Arab Emirates, like Qatar a key U.S. ally, said on March 24 it has committed six F-16 and six Mirage fighters to help enforce the no-fly zone over its fellow Arab country and that its flights would start "in the coming days."
The 22-member Arab League endorsed the no-fly zone before Western warplanes under Security Council Resolution 1973 launched attacks on the air defenses of Gadhafi's forces battling an armed revolt.
But with Arab states seen as slow to contribute, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier this week that Washington expected "more announcements" of Arab participation in the days ahead.