Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley says that moving combat search and rescue back to Air Combat Command ensures CSAR assets are “directly linked to the Combat Air Forces and the personnel they support.” He maintains ACC will be able to mobilize CSAR faster for a national crisis and share CSAR appropriately for air expeditionary force rotations. Gone is the rationale used two years ago that linked rescue folks with similar functions in Air Force Special Operations Command. (See our 2003 article link above.) AFSOC officials say shedding CSAR will let the command “focus on the continually expanding special operations mission.”
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…