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Editorial: Limit in-lieu-of taskings

Air Force Gen. T. Michael Moseley said last week he is increasingly reluctant to send airmen to do Army and Marine Corps jobs that are outside the airmen’s core competencies.

“We’ve drawn some red lines on some of the in-lieu-of taskings,” Moseley said.

“I’m going to be less supportive of things that are outside their capabilities.”

For example, he noted that airmen are guarding detainees at places such as Camp Bucca, Iraq.

“We don’t guard prisoners in the Air Force,” he said. “We don’t have prisons.”

In a war that is straining all the services, but especially the Army and Marine Corps, it will be tough to say no to an Army in need. But Moseley is right to try.

The Air Force is now well into its drawdown, about halfway toward cutting 40,000 jobs by the end of 2009. Readiness has declined by 17 percent since 2001, war needs are eating into operating budgets and morale is suffering as airmen watch talented colleagues forced to cut their careers short.

Some commands have lost 25 percent of their personnel to deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan, with no letup on the mission at home.

Moseley acknowledges that airmen can support the ground war. Security forces, drivers, logisticians, medics and information technology experts, among others, are ideally suited to contribute. But many airmen are asked to take on jobs that have nothing to do with their skills and training — not only wasting their skills, but also endangering their lives.

Wasting talent and skills acquired through years of training just to provide warm bodies might give some short-term relief to the Army, but it’s sure to do long-term damage to the Air Force if it is anything but temporary.

The Air Force can no longer afford to take that risk. Holding the line on in-lieu-of commitments is the right move for today’s smaller Air Force.