LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 497th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group recently executed the final manned and unmanned ISR missions over Iraq, closing the last chapter of a war that lasted nearly nine years.
While a majority of the group's mission details are classified, the 497th ISR Group played a critical role in Iraq by contributing actionable intelligence to protect U.S. and coalition forces engaging the enemy. The group's efforts resulted in the removal of several high-value targets and assisted in keeping friendly forces safe.
According to the 497th ISR Group commander, Col. Patrick Shortsleeve, the Air Force has increased its number of ISR platforms and capabilities since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the 497th ISR Group adapted to fulfill the evolving mission.
"We have increased personnel, numbers of systems and even moved into a new building to keep up with the ever-growing ISR capabilities," he said. "We have been the first on many occasions to conduct exploitation on new quick-reaction capability platforms and sensors, as well as forward deployed to help operate them."
Shortsleeve said the unit's biggest victory in Iraq is the effort to bring forces home safely, acknowledging the importance of providing situational awareness to forward-deployed forces of battle space to aid in force protection.
The commander highlighted the successful implementation of the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System, which he said allowed ISR Airmen to "project power and create desired effects without projecting the vulnerability associated with deployment of a brigade's worth of Airmen into the combat zone." The DCGS is the service's premier globally-networked ISR weapon system, producing intelligence information collected by the U-2, Project Liberty, RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator.
While the war in Iraq is over, the ISR mission continues elsewhere around the globe, including Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Shortsleeve said the workload will not decrease, but rather shift to other missions.
"As we have finished up operations in Iraq, the 497th will continue its efforts in Afghanistan and shift some of its focus to other high priority targets without ever having to forward deploy. Our workload will not go down, it will just shift," he explained. "We have recently taken on more missions and added exploitation of the MC-12 to our portfolio of capabilities. We can expect to continue to grow and work other mission sets in the future.
"If there is a U.S. combat operation or humanitarian event in the world, you can bet that the 497th ISR Group and the 480th ISR Wing with its DCGS enterprise will mass for effect through our regionally focused and globally networked weapon system and be ready to assist," Shortsleeve proclaimed. "We will always be ready to take on new missions, as we are hardwired to say yes."