oped: LOL...hmmmm seems the Military has had enough of the Obama administration...'Blue Flu' syndrome!
By BRADLEY KLAPPER and MATTHEW LEE
VIENNA (AP) — The United States may be the mightiest military and economic power in the world but when it comes to shuttling its top diplomat around the globe, it's beginning to look like a poor orphan.
For the fourth time this year — and the second time in three months, Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to fly home commercially when his aging Air Force Boeing 757, known in military parlance as a C-32, was grounded on Thursday with a mechanical problem in Vienna.
Inconvenient? Undoubtedly.
Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior
European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling
aides: "If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you
have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good."
Embarrassing?
Perhaps. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif chuckled when he
learned of Kerry's predicament. "So it is not just our planes," Zarif
said. Iran hasn't been able to refurbish its pre-1979 fleet of Boeing
aircraft because of heavy U.S. sanctions.
But
trivial? Not so much. Officials say far more than appearance is at
stake, particularly in the midst of multiple world crises like Ebola,
the military campaign against Islamic State militants, the crisis in
Ukraine, Israeli-Palestinian relations and, yes, the Iran nuclear talks.
Without access to the secure
phone links and classified data on his own plane, Kerry was effectively
out of the loop during the nine-hour flight from Vienna to Washington.
Aides said he had to cancel or reschedule several calls with world
leaders and other members of President Barack Obama's national security
team.
"In the world we live
in, we do high-stakes diplomacy via phone and secure phone," said State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "None of that is possible when any
secretary of state is flying on a commercial plane without secure
communications with hundreds of people."
"Every
minute of their day is scheduled," she said. "There is not a single
flight where Secretary Kerry isn't calling in via secure phone to an
interagency meeting or receiving sensitive national security
information, or reading classified information or briefings."
And he flies a lot.
Before
his current trip, Kerry had logged more than 566,000 plane miles this
year alone, according to the State Department. That's nearly 1,220 hours
or more than 50 days in the air.
Problems
with the 1990s-era Air Force fleet that ferry America's top officials
aren't new, and secretaries of state have long complained about the
aircraft they must fly for official business. Some have joked about
being envious of colleagues with newer, more efficient and more
luxurious planes.
Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encountered several aviation breakdowns
when she was in office, including a tire that burst on landing in the
United Arab Emirates, leading to an unscheduled overnight stay in Dubai.
But she never had to resort to flying commercially.
Yet the problems seem to be becoming more frequent and more serious.
Thursday's
incident was the fourth with one of Kerry's planes this year. The
previous two — in Switzerland in January and in Britain in March — were
resolved with only minor delays to his schedule.
But
in August, an electronics issue forced Kerry to return to Washington
from Hawaii on a commercial flight at the end of a round-the-world
diplomatic mission.
On
Thursday, the crew discovered that an auxiliary fuel tank was leaking.
An Associated Press reporter who visited the aircraft found the cabin
full of fumes. And, one technician involved in trying to patch up the
leak complained of feeling ill.
___
Lee reported from Washington. Associated Press photographer Carolyn Kaster in Vienna contributed to this report.
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