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U.S. Air Force Practices Moving Middle East Command Center Out of Range of Iran
(Washington Post) Adam Taylor - For 13 years, the U.S. has used a single building at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar to command Air Force fighter jets, bombers, and drones in a region from northeast Africa through the Middle East to South Asia. On Saturday, as 300 planes were in the air over Syria, Afghanistan and the Gulf, they were being controlled by teams at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina - although al-Udeid took back control on Sunday after 24 hours. The aim now is to run the center remotely once a month. Iran lies only a couple hundred miles across the Persian Gulf from al-Udeid. Analysts say that if a conflict with Iran were to break out, it's likely that the combined air and space operations center at al-Udeid could be targeted and that there is little guarantee that it could be defended. The base's defense systems, which include Patriot batteries, are designed mostly to combat planes and ballistic missiles that come in from a high altitude, rather than low-flying cruise missiles and drones like those used in the attack on the Saudi oil facilities.