Posted on 04/29/2004 9:28:05 PM PDT by neverdem
ARMAMENT
WASHINGTON, April 29 — The airstrikes in Falluja in the past three days by American warplanes and helicopter gunships have been the most intense aerial bombardment in Iraq since major combat ended nearly a year ago, military officials said Thursday.
In the past 48 hours, Air Force F-15E and F-16 warplanes, and carrier-based F-14 and F-18 fighter-bombers, have dropped about three dozen 500-pound laser-guided bombs in three different sections of Falluja, Air Force officials said, destroying more than 10 buildings and 2 sniper nests identified by troops as sources of attacking fire, and other targets.
By day, AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters have hovered over the city, launching Hellfire missiles at guerrillas who fire on the Marines. By night, lumbering AC-130 gunships have pounded trucks and cars ferrying fighters with the distinctive thump-thump of 105-millimeter howitzers. British Tornado ground-attack planes are also flying missions over Falluja, and remotely piloted Predator reconnaissance aircraft prowl the skies.
But Falluja is not only a military target; it also holds incalculable symbolic power. A bloodbath might return the city to American control, only to galvanize resistance around the country.
Commanders say they go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, but they acknowledge they do not know how many civilians have died in recent attacks. Pilots concede that in at least one case, an American warplane mistakenly bombed the wrong building in Falluja.
"The big problem now is that friendlies, civilians and bad guys are all mixed together," Brig. Gen. Jack Egginton, commander of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, said in a telephone interview from his base in the Persian Gulf.
The stepped-up air assault has sought to minimize the risks to both civilians and the military, senior officers said. Bombs guided by lasers or satellites permit American forces to attack weapons caches or clusters of fighters more precisely and with less risk to civilians than with ground fire, they say.
The air campaign's weapons of choice — 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombs — are timed to detonate a split second after piercing a building's floor, imploding the structure and limiting the blast's effects. The Air Force has also dropped 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs, and Maverick missiles.
"Air power in Falluja has had the ability to come in overhead and hit targets precisely, and has allowed marines to stay out of lethal range," Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, the senior American air commander in the Middle East, said in a telephone interview from Qatar.
To try to reduce risk to civilians, pilots use computer programs to figure out what kind of bomb, dropped at what angle, using which type of detonating device, will destroy a target with a minimum of what the military calls collateral damage.
"This urban thing is very complicated and requires much discipline," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force vice chief of staff who directed the air campaign during the invasion, said in an interview on Thursday. "It's not something that you just shoot into a city. It is not carpet-bombing. It is not indiscriminate bombing. It is not just firing into an area. This is very hard to do."
Pilots work closely with spotters on the ground to identify targets. Spotters relay target coordinates or guide bombs to their destination with laser designators, a process that may take only minutes. But, commanders say, if bombing is needed near mosques, schools or hospitals, the spotters may be allowed hours.
"It requires the commander on the ground to determine the target and provide the positive identification of the target, the positive location of the target, and then to also do the assessment on the collateral damage — in other words, what unintended consequences would have by striking that particular target," said Maj. Gen. John F. Sattler, chief of operations for the United States Central Command.
This week's intensified airstrikes are still well below the 275 daily missions of a year ago. Excluding helicopters, the number of allied aircraft based around the Persian Gulf to support the invasion was about 750; today there are about 350.
But Navy and Air Force combat missions were on the increase across the country even before the latest spasm of violence. Those forces are now flying 55 to 60 combat flights over Iraq each day, more than double the number earlier this year. They are also flying 45 to 50 combat support missions a day, military officials said.
Ground commanders piece together intelligence from land and airborne sensors to help pinpoint enemy positions. RC-135 Rivet Joint planes sweep up electronic transmissions, including cellphone calls, to help identify insurgents' hideouts.
The Air Force has also sent about a dozen Rover laptop computers to Iraq, which allow ground spotters to receive live video feeds from Predators. A Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft is to arrive next week.
American and British aircraft continue to patrol major supply routes, power lines and other critical installations.
"Most of our missions are about presence and working with ground forces," Capt. Alan Wesenberg, an F-15E pilot from Arvada, Colo., said in a telephone interview. "Most of the time we're looking for potential problems: vehicles pulled off the side of the road or a bridge knocked out."
None of the gunships' Special Operations aviators would discuss the Falluja mission, but some spoke of the AC-130's precision by recalling a mission last year in support of American ground forces closing with the Iraqi Army: The AC-130's surveillance equipment, which includes live feeds from Predators, allowed the crew to identify individuals.
"The good guys were closing in one side, and suddenly we saw Iraqis shooting their own guys in the back, trying to push them forward," said one pilot. "So we left those soldiers in front alone and I said, `Let's get the really bad guys.' We trained our firepower on them. We could see all that from above, and could separate the bad guys from the really bad guys."
In addition, and perhaps of even more importance IMHO, it would preserve American lives. We do not need to go into that hellhole and take it block by block or neighborhood by neighborhood. That plays into the hands of those resisting and fighting us and the plan for freedom in Iraq...their Jihad culture.
The types of things we are doing now, negotiating and considering hiring an army headed by former Saddam Generals and some of the very people we are fighting there, comissioning them to do the job will be viewed as weakness and a stand down on our part...and will embolden more attacks.
Just my opinion.
That ought to be bad for morale!
I'd rather they go to great lengths to avoid American casualties.
See the link in my post #2.
The AC-130U is even better, and has better countermeasures against ground-to-air shoulder launched guided missiles, and is equipped with a 25mm GAU-12/U Gatling that allows it to fire from a greater elevation and slant range than the earlier versions that ysed twin M61 20mm guns instead..
Additionally, it's got superior sensors and night observation equipment and the onbard computers that let it perform a few of those gee-whiz targeting tricks described in the artticle above. Though there are only around 20 in the entire USAF inventory, it's a good bet that the success of the newest AC-130 family member, now radio callsign *Spooky* replacing *Specter,* will see more follow the first two batches built.
IMHO, I think it depends on how you define victory. Right now, the American home front reminds me of the early 1970s, and it looks like we have two tigers by the tail, i.e. Sunni Arabs and the restive, majority Shi'ites backed by Iran, looking to exploit any chance to obstruct our ends.
The goal of a democratic Iraq is unlikely with needless killing. We need to kill only the bad guys.
I think that is one reason why it is so hard to win. Too much PC.
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