The State (South Carolina) April 23, 2003
Air war helped secure quick victory in Iraq
Campaign led by Shaw's Moseley kept enemy off balance, on the run
By CHUCK CRUMBO
While U.S. troops fought sandstorms and Fedayeen attacks, the Air Force pounded the Iraqi military from miles above the battlefield.
The Iraqi air war, crafted by Lt. Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley of the 9th Air Force at Shaw Air Force Base, was so precise and lethal that some observers liken it to a "stealth" campaign.
That's understandable, said Col. Tim Rush, operations group commander of the S.C. Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing, which has 400 members and an F-16 squadron deployed to the Persian Gulf.
"If you drop a bomb from 10 miles away, you never hear or see the airplane but, all of a sudden, a building explodes," Rush said. "It's a military target, and there's no collateral damage to civilians, so the bombing doesn't get reported except through military channels."
But pilots credit Moseley's plan -- calling for a relentless pace of missions, rapid-fire communications between the battlefield and commanders, and minimal damage to the civilian population -- for the rapid downfall of the Iraqi regime.
"I think that's exactly correct," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit defense and security policy think tank in Alexandria, Va.
The safety of Iraq's civilian population was paramount on all bombing missions, an S.C. pilot said.
"We probably passed up many, many targets because you don't know for sure if it's a civilian structure," said "Cleetus," of the 157th "Swamp Fox" Fighter Squadron, stationed in Qatar. "If that's the case, you skip it and go on."
(The National Guard asked that full names of its deployed personnel not be used for security reasons.)
GlobalSecurity's Pike, who has seen satellite photographs of military sites struck by U.S. airmen, said he has been impressed by the attacks' precision. "They just basically hit leadership and Republic Guard targets."
Most of the bombs dropped by U.S. forces were guided by laser beams or satellites, making them accurate to within a few feet of their target, Rush said. In the first Gulf War, less than 10 percent of the ordnance used was so-called "smart" bombs, he said.
Much of the Iraqi air war remains untold to the media and military analysts, Pike said.
"We don't have a clue as to what happened with air attacks against Republican Guard elements as they maneuvered from their garrisons in northern Iraq to try to counterattack south of Baghdad," Pike said.
However, it's likely U.S. warplanes stopped the Republican Guard in its tracks and broke the will of surviving Iraqi soldiers to fight, observers said.
Much of the air campaign's success hinged on being flexible. Rapid communication of battlefield conditions to commanders allowed them to relay orders to pilots.
In the 1991 Gulf War, it took at least six to seven hours to relay information to commanders so that a bombing mission could be planned and launched, said Rush, a veteran of Desert Storm.
This time, information was relayed in a matter of minutes.
"We have the capability now of stepping pilots out the door, go get in an airplane and launch to a certain spot in the sky," said Lt. Col. Scott Manning of Shaw's 77th "Gamblers" Fighter Squadron, which is deployed to a gulf air base the Air Force has declined to identify.
"When we arrive at a certain point, we are told to proceed to a location .'.'. and either suppress or destroy whatever is in that area."
Called "time sensitive targeting," the rapid-fire response kept the Iraqis from being able to move their troops, as well as mobile air defense systems, around the desert, the pilots said.
"We were just moving things as quickly and changing the tempo faster than they were able to deal with," Manning said.
Copyright © 2003, The State
