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Coalition Air Forces Make
Ground Gains Possible
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2003 - Americans see the tanks driving through Baghdad,
but what they really don't see is the air campaign that helped make it
possible.
The main beneficiaries of the air campaign are the young soldiers and
Marines driving into the heart of the Iraqi capital is the view of the
combined forces air component commander in the theater.
"Along the way there's going to be someone, somewhere who will want an
accounting scheme of who killed what vehicle," said Air Force Lt. Gen. T.
Michael Moseley. "But right now that isn't important to us, and it's not
important to that lieutenant or captain (commanding a unit on the ground). I
just say we've killed a hell of a lot of them; we're going to keep killing
them until they quit moving."
As coalition forces move into Baghdad, the air campaign is changing, said
Moseley from his headquarters in Saudi Arabia today in an interview.
He's in charge of air assets in the theater. These include the aircraft of
five U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean; U.S.
Air Force units based at more than 30 bases in the theater and some outside
it; Marine aviation aboard the carriers and on land; and Royal Air Force and
Royal Australian Air Force aircraft based in the region.
As land forces move into the city, the nature of air support will change.
Moseley said the coalition will maintain airborne forward air controllers
over the city 24 hours a day. These airmen will act as liaisons with ground
forward air controllers and any number of aircraft "stacked" over
Baghdad.
Different types of aircraft with different sets of munitions will be ready
to support ground forces 24 hours a day.
"The close-air support problem is a challenge in the desert or in the city,
because you are delivering weapons in close proximity of friendly troops,"
Moseley said. "It's a little more of a challenge in an urban setting
because
of the civilians that are there that you are trying to liberate."
The coalition aircraft have dealt with this before. The U.S. military has
studied the problems associated with close-air support in an urban setting,
and experiences in operations over Afghanistan have given the United States
an edge in this critical area of combat.
President Bush and senior officials have stated many times: The coalition is
after the Iraqi regime, not the Iraqi people.
"The trick in doing this is to use the smallest munition possible to get
the
maximum effect, so you don't create the unnecessary loss of civilian life or
property," Moseley said. "It is interesting that we are more
interested in
the people and property and structures in Baghdad than the Iraqi military
is."
And sometimes the right explosive is no explosive. In especially critical
areas, the air forces can drop inert munitions - a precision-guided bomb
with no explosives inside - to take out a target, Moseley said. This
consideration continues the coalition practice of only using
precision-guided munitions inside Baghdad.
But this is not easy, the general said. "It's only because we've trained to
do this, and only because we've spent a lot of time worrying about this and
rehearsing this that have we got to the point where we open that concept of
(operations) up to support both the Marines and the Army with a wide variety
of aircraft and munitions," he said.
The coalition air forces have a number of missions in this conflict, and
different parts of Iraq mean a different concept of operations. Operations
in the north are different from the south, and both are different from in
the west of the country, Moseley said.
In the north, coalition air forces work closely with special operations
forces and conventional forces. Special operations forces are working with
Kurdish groups against the regime and against terrorist camps. The coalition
air forces are hitting strategic targets. Navy fighters from the
Mediterranean are providing most of the close-air support for coalition
forces in the north.
Coalition air forces dropped the 173rd Airborne Brigade into northern Iraq
and are running an airhead to resupply the coalition forces.
In western Iraq, the mission is different still. There, one aspect is
stopping Iraq from firing ballistic missiles at its neighbors, Moseley said.
Coalition air forces also work with coalition special operations forces
holding airfields in the region.
In the south, coalition air forces switched rather quickly from strategic
targets to support to land component forces.
They did all this while other coalition aircraft were hitting regime
targets, conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions,
airlifting supplies and people and hitting Iraqi air defense sites.
Moseley specifically mentioned the critical role tanker aircraft have played
in any air campaign. From March 19 through April 3, coalition tankers had
transferred 30 million gallons of jet fuel.
But air responsibility doesn't end at the atmosphere. Moseley said there are
more than 50 satellites supporting land, sea and air component commanders.
He said they have been unbelievably capable, supporting all aspects of the
campaign.