US Doubles Air Attacks in Iraq
By Charles J. Hanley
Associated Press
June 5, 2007
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issue...Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago. The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its surroundings - an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven with sectarian violence. It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties.
In the first 4 1/2 months of 2007, American aircraft dropped 237 bombs and missiles in support of
ground forces in Iraq, already surpassing the 229 expended in all of 2006, according to U.S. Air Force figures obtained by The Associated Press.
"Air operations over Iraq have ratcheted up significantly, in the number of sorties, the number of
hours (in the air)," said Col. Joe Guastella, Air Force operations chief for the region. "It has a lot to do with increased pressure on the enemy by MNC-I" - the Multinational Corps-Iraq - "combined with more carriers."
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Examples of attacks, as reported in the Air Force's daily summary:
-Last Friday, an Air Force F-16 fighter dropped a guided 500-pound bomb near the northern city of Tal Afar that destroyed a vehicle laden with explosives to be used as a bomb.
-The day before, an F-16 dropped a similar bomb on "an inaccessible building being used by insurgents" near Samarra, north of Baghdad, with "good effects."
-Last Wednesday, another F-16 dropped bombs on "an illegal bridge and an insurgent vehicle in Baghdad."
Police and other Iraqi sources sometimes report civilian casualties in such airstrikes that are not
reflected in the official U.S. accounts. Air Force Col. Gary Crowder, deputy director of the regional air operations center, said such casualties "pale in comparison" with civilian casualties from ground combat. "In Iraq, we minimize our deployment of air-delivered weapons in populated areas," he said. Crowder, Guastella and Cox were interviewed outside Iraq at the regional U.S. air headquarters.
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Air attacks in Iraq are still relatively low compared with the numbers of weapons dropped in
Afghanistan - 929 this year as of May 15.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2007/0605bombardment.htm