WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that U.S. military services were not doing enough to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, singling out the Air Force for adapting too slowly to new enemies on those battlefields.
In unusually harsh public criticism, Gates said that his attempts to get the Pentagon to more quickly help commanders on the ground had been "like pulling teeth," and he blamed military leaders who were "stuck in old ways of doing business."
He said he was particularly upset with the military's failure to get more unmanned spy planes into the air over the two war zones -- primarily an Air Force responsibility. Although the number of drones has nearly doubled in recent months, Gates has set up a task force to push for even more.
"We can do and we should do more to meet the needs of men and women fighting in the current conflicts while their outcome may still be in doubt," Gates said. "Our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield."
By delivering the rebuff in a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama -- home to the Air Force's premier war college -- Gates sent a clear message to the military branch, and turned what had been a fight behind closed doors into a public dispute.
The criticism comes during a tense period for Gates and the Air Force. The Defense secretary has fought a series of increasingly acrimonious internal battles against the Air Force leadership, which has pushed for dozens of new F-22 fighter planes and resisted more drone deployments. In doing so, the Air Force has failed to focus its energies on the wars at hand, Gates has charged.
The Air Force Assn., an independent advocacy group composed largely of retired Air Force officials, issued a statement shortly after Gates' remarks insisting that the service had pushed to get more drones to war zones. Association officials said they concluded Gates "was referring to the Army" in his criticisms.
"I don't think he's got a lot of airmen advising him on things," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael M. Dunn, the association's president, said in an interview. "This would be in a lot worse shape if the Air Force hadn't gotten out ahead of it, because you can't produce something overnight."
