Auntie Charo's Soapbox

"Guam's Andersen AFB eyed as home for new Global Strike Task Force

Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes

May 24, 2005

The military is eyeing Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to be its Pacific hub
for a force of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike and aerial
refueling assets.

Base officials announced last week that the Air Force would prepare a draft
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to evaluate the impact of standing up a
Global Strike Task Force at Andersen.

The proposal to be studied calls for basing three Global Hawk unmanned
aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft at Andersen,
as well as 12 aerial refueling tankers, according to a Notice of Intent
posted online Wednesday on the Federal Register. Also, 48 fighter and six
bomber aircraft would rotate to Andersen from bases in the United States.
The plan would require about 2,400 additional military, civilian and
contractor personnel, and facility construction to support basing and
operation.

Andersen officials said the study does not guarantee the projected buildup.

“Plans for growth at Andersen have not yet been finalized,” Col. Steve
Wolborsky, 36th Air Expeditionary Wing vice commander, said in a written
statement. “This environmental study simply paves the way for future growth,
by enabling us to take any potential environmental impacts into account.”

Maj. Kris Meyle, 36th Air Expeditionary Wing spokeswoman, added, “Whenever
we do an EIS, we address the largest possible scope of a project,” and the
proposed numbers and components of the plan could change.

A contractor based in the United States was hired by Pacific Air Forces to
complete the study, Andersen officials said.

No timeline for a decision has been determined, officials said. Meyle said
the draft EIS could take a year or more to complete.

The study will take into account “any potential environmental impacts” on
natural resources and people, Meyle said, including wildlife, water, air
quality, land use and noise. She also said any areas that would be impacted
are already part of the main base.

According to a June 2002 Air Force Magazine story, the Global Strike Task
Force concept emerged in 2000 as a way of “circumventing or breaking through
an enemy’s anti-access theater defenses.”

It provides the ability to “strike rapidly and effectively anywhere
throughout the Pacific,” Meyle said. “It would take maybe 13 hours flying
time from the West Coast of the United States and probably another eight
hours from Hawaii to reach some of the potential hot spots in the Pacific
region, where for us it could be four or five hours.”

Meyle noted that part of the plan being studied calls for Global Hawk to be
up and running at Andersen in fiscal 2009, and the building of the
infrastructure to support the aircraft to start in 2007. About 50 personnel
would accompany the three aircraft according to the current proposal, she
said.

The tankers, it’s proposed, also would be based at Andersen permanently,
while fighters and bombers would rotate through the base.

Currently, about a dozen F-15Es from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho;
four B-2s from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., and four tankers from Nebraska
Air National Guard are temporarily basing out of Andersen.

“It’s been a good opportunity for everybody all around to demonstrate we
have the capability to do all of these things,” Meyle said."

I can only hope that the residents of Guam welcome the arrival of the military and their dependents with open arms.