Intel Gathering Over Syria Begins-possibly with the U-2 spy plane

We have a fundamentalist state in the center of the Middle East,General Michael V. Hayden,US Air Force Retired,former director of both the CIA and NSA,said of the Islamic State-also called ISIL or ISIS.We have got to take the wood to ISIS and clearly make them less capable.It's a government and an army.We need to begin to treat ISIS territory the way we have treated Waziristan,the Islamic militant stronghold in Pakistan,making them wary about their own security.*
There was genuine grief,genuine anger in the President's statement on the beheading of the journalist James Foley by ISIS in Syria.The question I have is,what are we going to do about it?I think we have to do more to degrade them.The tide of war is not receding.We might have to do it with some of our own forces on the ground,GEN Hayden noted.*
President Obama has just ordered the beginning of reconnaissance flights over Syria,a precursor to possible airstrikes on the Islamic State heartland.The militants had seized an airfield in Northern Syria on Monday.You have no allies to speak of in Syria;zero intelligence in Eastern Syria where ISIL is concentrated,said Bob Baer,formerly with the CIA.*
A possible choice to carry out at least some of the recon is the Lockheed U-2 spyplane,which can fly at 70,000 feet,day or night and in all-weather.It has superior cameras and sensors to the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone.The House Armed Services Committee has forbidden the expenditure of funds on the retirement,planned retirement or storage of the U-2 in its 2015 budget markup.*
U-2 units that could be tasked with Syrian overflights are the US Air Force 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron out of Al Dahfra Air Base,UAE;or the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron Detachment 3 out of RAF Akrotiri,Cyprus.*
Lockheed Martin(LMT)