Roger That: Air Force escalation of Islamic State bombing campaign depletes munition stockpiles

The Air Force has fired more than 20,000 missiles and bombs in the air war against the Islamic State, depleting its stocks of munitions and prompting the service to scour depots around the world for more weapons and to find money to buy them, according to records obtained by USA TODAY.

The Air Force efforts come as the Pentagon has stepped up airstrikes on Islamic State, or ISIL, targets in Iraq and Syria. That bombing campaign began in August 2014 in Iraq, spread to Syria a month later and has continued to target ISIL fighters and equipment.

“We’re in the business of killing terrorists and business is good,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in statement. “We need to replenish our munitions stock. Weapons take years to produce from the day the contract is assigned until they roll off the production line.”

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The U.S. Marine Corps lost its bid to keep some combat fields closed to women, but officials said the service will waste no time in adapting to the new policy, according to Military.com.

Headquarters Marine Corps issued a statement Thursday announcing the service’s intention to align itself with the policy change immediately, and to share its plans and lessons learned with the other services to help with their integration process.

“We are well-informed by our combat experience, as well as our objective approach and data obtained from the past two years of study,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Philip Kulczewski said in the statement.

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Military.com is also reporting that British warplanes hit oil fields that help finance the activities of the Islamic State in Britain’s first airstrikes following a vote in Parliament that authorized military action in Syria, its defense secretary said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told BBC that the Omar fields in eastern Syria were targeted to strike “a very real blow at the oil and the revenue” on which ISIS depends. The strikes came within hours of Parliament’s vote to attack the terror group.

Fallon confirmed that eight more jets were on the way to Britain’s base in Cyprus to join attacks and warned that military action against ISIS should be expected to continue for years to come.

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The Army will conduct a “thorough, multidisciplinary review” in response to a call from a group of 12 senators to investigate reports that the service discharged for misconduct as many as 22,000 soldiers who had been diagnosed with mental health problems, according to Military Times.

“We strive to have a process that is fair, objective and deliberate, and that ensures due process and the maintenance of good order and discipline within the ranks,” Acting Army Secretary Eric K. Fanning wrote in a letter to Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

National Public Radio in October reported that the Army, since 2009, has separated 22,000 soldiers for misconduct after they returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and had been diagnosed with mental health problems.

This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 11:27 AM with the headline "Roger That: Air Force escalation of Islamic State bombing campaign depletes munition stockpiles."