"We used four weapons on the target," Air Force Lt. Col. Fred Swan, told Pentagon reporters of Monday's attack in a telephone interview from the region. "From the time we got the coordinates, it took 12 minutes to get the bombs on target."
Swan, one of four crewmen on the aircraft, said two earth-penetrating GBU-31 2,000-pound bombs and two delayed-fuse bombs of the same size were used.
He said he did not know who was in the destroyed building, but that the air traffic controller in a nearby airborne radar plane told the B-1 jet's crew before the daylight raid, "This is the big one."
Other U.S. officials told Reuters that intelligence indicated that Saddam and his sons might have been in the building but that there was no immediate indication whether the Iraqi president or others might have been killed.
"We got the order that it was a high-priority leadership target," he said. He said the jet 12 minutes later dropped two GBU-31 (guided bomb unit) bombs designed to penetrate deeply into the target before they exploded and, three seconds later, another two of the bombs with "25 millisecond" delayed fuses.
"I did not know who was there. I really didn't care," he added, stressing that he told the crew "this could be the big one. Let's get it right."
The swing-wing, four-engine jet bomber carries 24 of the satellite-guided "joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) bombs. Swan said the aircraft later dropped 17 of the bombs on two other targets -- one in western Iraq and one near Baghdad -- before returning to its base in the Gulf region.