Military doesn’t back soldiers enough, Gates says

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that U.S. military services are not doing enough to support soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, singling out the Air Force for adapting too slowly to the 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 have been “like pulling teeth,” and he blamed military leaders who are “stuck in old ways of doing business.”

He said he was particularly upset with the failure of the Air Force to get more unmanned spy planes into the air over the two war zones. While the number of drones has doubled in recent months, he is setting up a new 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 in a major address at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. “Our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield.”

Gates has complained in the past that the Pentagon he inherited in 2006 was not on what he called a “war footing.” He has criticized other military services in the past, including the Army for failing to get mine-resistant armored vehicles to war theaters and for its lapses at Walter Reed Medical Center.

The new round of criticism comes at an especially tense time between Gates and the Air Force. The Defense secretary has been fighting a series of increasingly acrimonious internal battles against Air Force leaders, who have pushed for dozens of new F-22 fighter planes and resisted more drone deployments.