Excerpt from Hearings on National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 H. R. 4200 and Oversight of Previously Authorized Programs: Before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, Second Session, Projection Forces Subcommittee Hearings on Title I Procurement, Title II Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (H. R. 4200), Hearings H While the United States enjoyed access to well-established mili tary bases in Europe, the Persian Gulf, Northeast Asia and South east Asia during the Cold War, finding adequate forward bases from which to project forces with shorter ranges may be difficult to do in areas where threats are beginning to emerge. In Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the lack of re gional bases limited the effectiveness of land-based tactical aircraft. As a result, Air Force long-range bombers and Navy and Marine Corps carrier-based aircraft dropped most of the bombs and con ducted most of the combat sorties. More recently, the inability to access, or fully access, bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia complicated u.s. Air operations in Oper ation Iraqi Freedom, making those forces capable of operating over long distances, or from sea bases, much more valuable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.