From Military.com

The Air Force is increasing the number of personnel and aircraft in the Middle East to support the 21,500 ground troops joining the battle in Iraq as part of President Bush’s "surge" plan, the service’s chief strategist in the region tells Inside the Air Force.

"We have increased our force posture in Iraq in anticipation of the surge," Lt. Col. Clint Hinote said in a Jan. 30 phone interview from the Air Force’s Combined Air Operations Center, located somewhere in Southwest Asia. The service does not disclose the exact location of the facility.

"We’ve brought over more fighters to better provide overwatch for the ground units in Iraq," he said through a service spokeswoman in a Feb. 1 e-mail. "We’re also preparing to deploy more [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] assets to provide more information to ground ops.

"We’re bringing over more tankers to meet the increased [operations], and we are flying our airlift assets at high capacity to move the huge amount of people and equipment," he added. "In addition to this, there’s the widely publicized deployment of two carrier strike groups to the [area of responsibility], which will further increase the air power footprint in theater."