Well, this is a common problem with any HDLD capability and from my experience in theater fights over predator are not new. The question of who gets priority over limited assets is an enduring one.

I do think, however, the basic argument the AF is making here is legitimate - is it worth it to sacrifice future capabilities to get more capabilities sooner? Maybe, but the AF leadership would be shirking its duty to not make the leadership aware of the consequences of proposed courses of action.

And there are the cultural issues which are not all that different from those the Army has been dealing with for the past several years. For example, Predator is not yet considered a "primary" aircraft, IOW one that a pilot can spend a career in, so it's viewed as a diversion from a the "real" job of flying a manned aircraft. This will be a big cultural change for the Air Force and one that will not be made quickly or easily unfortunately. I can see the writing on the wall, but I fear many bag-wearers do not.

Coldstreamer,

It's never as simple as "giving" predator to the Army. Predator is not simply an aircraft, but a system and a capability that's been under development for a decade. One could not "give" predator to the Army without giving the Army all the pilots, maintainers, DCGS, interpreters, contracts, R&D staff, etc. which is simply not possible, even assuming your assertion that predator is land component tool is true.

Consider an opposite example - give the Air Force the Patriot missile system. How ya gonna do that? Hand the systems over and say, "here ya go?" Make everyone in Patriot MOS' change uniforms? No, that's not possible and furthermore it would be stupid, even though ADA might be argued a better fit with the AF mission.

And let's keep in mind that the long-endurance ISR capability provided by predator and other AF UAV's that is now blithely judged a "land component tool" would not be available at all were it not for the AF. As Bill Sweetman puts it:

It's worth noting that the most recent roles-and-missions spat between the Air Force and the Army centers on the latter's Warrior UAV... which would not exist were it not for the USAF's initiative in adopting a CIA-developed system, equipping it first with a laser designator and then with missiles, and integrating it into large-scale air-land operations.

The Army quite literally never thought of that. Army people are not trained to think in those terms. The Army's home-developed UAVs are broadly comparable to Israeli technology. As in Israeli technology of 20 years ago.
With that, however, I fully support the Army developing their own comparable UAVs for their specific needs as long as there is commonality in the supporting architectures and subsystems.