Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Operation Eagle Assist began on October 9, 2001 after the North Atlantic Council's October 4 decision to operationalize Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and ended on May 16, 2002. In total, 830 crew members from 13 NATO nations executed 360 operational sorties, totaling nearly 4300 hours, over the skies of the United States in NATO AWACS aircraft.
The decision to terminate what was NATO's first deployment "in the defense of one of its member countries" "was made on the basis of upgrades to the U.S. air defense posture, enhanced cooperation between U.S. civil and military authorities, and on mandatory evaluations of homeland security requirements"
Famous quotes containing the words operation, eagle and/or assist:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“The Eagle has landed.”
—Neil Armstrong (b. 1930)
“People buy their necessities in shops and have to pay dearly for them because they have to assist in paying for what is also on sale there but only rarely finds purchasers: the luxury and amusement goods. So it is that luxury continually imposes a tax on the simple people who have to do without it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)