Posted on 11/28/2005 1:00:25 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
11/28/2005 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- U.S. Air Force F-16s successfully bombed a booby-trapped house in the vicinity of Al Mahmudiyah Nov. 23 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Anti-Iraqi forces had attacked Iraqi Army Soldiers with an improvised explosive device Nov. 21. Coalition ground forces then secured and searched the area of the attack, discovering the booby-trapped house, also used as a terrorist hideout.
After an explosive ordnance disposal team investigated the house and the surrounding area was cleared of civilians, 332nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron F-16s from Balad Air Base, Iraq, dropped 500-pound precision-guided bombs and destroyed the target.
The precision-guided bombs used, better known as GBU-38s, were Joint Direct Attack Munitions. JDAMS are especially designed to reduce collateral damage, limit unintended casualties and take the fight up close and personal to enemy insurgents. This munition autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates, which can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff or manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release.
Since January there have been more than 480 air strikes against insurgent staging areas, buildings where anti-coalition forces are hiding, motor-firing sites, improvised explosive device locations and weapons caches.
More than 15,000 air strike missions have been flown in 2005 providing close-air support for coalition ground forces involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The F-16s involved in this air strike are deployed from the 457th Fighter Squadron, Fort Worth Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Texas.
I heard recently that our forces are using a different tactic now, when we take a town, we keep it.
Seems to me like we could use US/Iraq forces to take some of these towns, then let the vast majority of forces that remain to hold it be Iraqi. The US troops would be smaller contingents with the objective of observation and communication as to status of the situation.
I wonder if they are doing that now?
The only good terrorist is a DEAD one. Kill'em all!
Now that should be in a "Can you hear me now?" commercial......
Alternatively, a picture of the target's butt can be held up to the JDAM's nose cone just before start of takeoff roll.
BTTT
The answer to your question is yes.
This website below is not the only one that reports the good news about whats happening in Iraq but it does have a lot of links to other sites that can give you some more of the picture.
http://threatswatch.org/
why are we not using moabs? I think the last time we used the sucker was around 2002 and that was in tests.
Daschle is deeply saddened and very concerned
1, 2 F-16 sorties, plus 1 LGB? Unless this booby-trapped building was occupied by enemy snipers this seems a tad inefficient from a dollars & cents standpoint. Why not just bring in a couple of D5 bulldozers and have the Engineers push the building over? Or lay demolition charges? That has to be cheaper.
Target destroyed - bump......
Anyone hear Brit Hume on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday. His analysis is America is winning the war, both militarily and politically. I think his analysis is pretty close to right. But all the MSM shows us are the pieces of bad news against US and coalition forces, never any of the positive developments. Indeed, the MSM plays up stories of indiscriminate suicide bombings of Iraqi civilians as as if they represent a defeat for the US. As Brit Hume pointed out, these attacks are in fact just the opposite--they are a sign of defeat for the terrorist forces in Iraq that this is the best they can do. I have to agree. And with each Iraqi killed by terrorist bombs, 100 more Iraqis decide to cooperate with coalition forces to finger the bad guys (just an arbitrary figure, but you know what I mean.)
Anyway, if we STAY THE COURSE, we will win this thing in process of time. Things are looking good.
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