The "Blitzkrieg," a synthesis of technology and strategy, revolutionized warfare in
World War II. Operation Desert Storm witnessed another unprecedented fusion of
technology and strategy that was so intense; so destructive; that it has been called
"Hyperwar."(1) The primary offensive technological components of Hyperwar are
stealthy aircraft and precision guided munitions. The strategy is two-fold. The first
goal is politico-military decapitation of the enemy, achieved by destroying C3I
(command, control, communication and information) targets. These assets include
leadership and the assets that allow them to communicate with other decision-making cells and military resources. If the C3I targets are not satisfactorily
destroyed, Hyperwar attackers target "all those things that allow a nation to
sustain itself."(2) While the individual technological components of Desert Storm
were more evolutionary than revolutionary, the coalition commander's coordinated
the disparate facets of the initial attack so precisely that it "threatened every facet
of the enemy's military and its supporting infrastructure."(3) This overwhelming
juggernaut, and its long-term destruction are truly revolutionary, and warrant
examination.
Analysts frequently identify the long build-up time the Iraqis allowed the coalition
to generate its forces as one of the primary reasons for Desert Storm's success.
What one mustn't forget however, is that Iraq was building-up its forces counter
to the Coalition during this time. For example, in addition to the modern and
redundant air defense system already in place, by January 1991, the Iraqis had
over 500,000 troops in Kuwait, "dug-in" and deployed in mutually supporting
defenses in depth. Mine fields and oil-filled "fire trenches" were correlated with
interlocking fields of fire from various weapons systems. Numerous triangular
fortifications interspersed two wide defensive belts.(4) Iraqi logistics were well suited
for support of the conflict. That the Coalition was able to defeat such a large and
well prepared force in 100 hours of ground warfare is remarkable. It was made
possible by an aerial Hyperwar.
Hyperwar can be depicted by a handful of overlapping, or mutually supporting
characteristics; including surprise, intensity, lethality, decapitation, scope, and
mass.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A ROUT
There is nothing revolutionary about using surprise for military advantage, in
hyperwar tactical surprise at the least is requisite. As the chapter on counter-air-operations illustrated, the benefits of surprise in a world of space-based intelligence,
stealth aircraft, and long-range precision guided munitions, are so great that the
defender probably will be unable to recover. Furthermore, the assets available to
the hyperwarior make surprise all the more attainable and complete. The
Department of Defense, for example, claims not only to have achieved tactical
surprise in its attack on the Iraqi forces in Kuwait, but also strategic and
operational surprise as well.(5)
The inertia generated by surprise grows and grows. During Desert surprise allowed
a small number of aircraft -- 34? F-117s -- to destroy the command and control,
hardened air shelters and major facilities in the Iraqi air defense system that gave
coalition forces air supremacy, that thereupon facilitated the ground campaign.
Surprise is also key to achieving a more unique hyperwar attribute; decapitation.
While past planners largely dreamed of ending a conflict in one fell swoop, future hyperwar operations will focus on politico-military decapitation. There are three levels of decapitation. The first is elimination of the leader or leaders most directly responsible for controlling the government and military.
As stated in the 17 January 1991 Operations Order 91-001 the key theater military
objectives of the Coalition were to attack Iraqi politico-military leadership and
command and control; gain and maintain air superiority; sever Iraqi supply lines;
destroy known chemical, biological and nuclear production, storage, and delivery
capabilities; destroy Republican Guard forces in the KTO and liberate Kuwait City.(6)
Note that the very first objective mentioned was to "get Saddam." Theoretically,
this strategy makes perfect sense. Why waste bullets on Privates when you can
eliminate the General?
The second level of decapitation is to eliminate the leadership's ability to
communicate to the military, and the military's ability to communicate among
itself. Thus, the second targets mentioned were command and control assets --
which, incidently are usually manned by the leadership who were the initial
targets. This second decapitation objective reduces the threat and eases future
operations, as opposed to the first decapitation objective which eliminates the
problem at its source. The third level of decapitation is to eliminate the enemy's
real and potential means of retaliation. In the Persian Gulf, as in most foreseeable
scenarios, this meant eliminating the enemy's air force. The Iraqi air force was a
known commodity. Coalition commanders realized the potential damage Iraqi
aircraft could mete out. In hyperwar's initial spasm, however, the freedom of action
is so great that planners are able to focus as much on the potential as the real
threats. Thus, Iraq's potential nuclear, as well as its very real chemical and
biological capabilities were bombed.
No violence short of a nuclear explosion has been as intense as the air onslaught
unleashed upon Iraq. In the first 24 hours, for example, over 1,300 combat sorties
were flown by Coalition air forces, including over 800 strike sorties by fixed wing
aircraft. In addition, the US Navy launched 106 TLAMs.(7) This unprecedented
intensity was maintained over a prolonged period. On average, during Operation
Desert Storm, more than 1,000 aircraft sorties were launched per day.(8) This
amounted to approximately 10 times as many sorties per aircraft per week as in
World War II.(9) The types of weapons employed in Operation Desert storm
contributed as much to the intensity as the sheer numbers or tempo of attack. An
unprecedented number of precision munitions were dropped on Iraq. By one
estimate, Iraq was the recipient of half again as many precision bombs in 43 days
as Vietnam absorbed in eight years of war.(10) These weapons contributed
significantly to the operation's lethality, which will be discussed subsequently.
Another characteristic of Hyperwar is the consistency of the attack's intensity. In
past conflicts, the enemy could always find a lull in the conflict to regroup and
recover. During Desert Storm, the Iraqis never got a chance to catch their breath.
While allied aircraft made use of the cover of darkness, cruise missiles rained down
on Baghdad during the daylight hours. Approximately 80 percent of cruise missile
attacks occurred in daylight.(11) Once a C3 asset or airfield was damaged it stayed
damaged. Constant pressure on the enemy made repairs impossible, or at least very
difficult. No Iraqi asset was too well defended to attack. Coalition commanders
could launch a cruise missile in with confidence that a fixed or semi-fixed target
would be damaged or destroyed.
While Iraq's forces were being destroyed, and its leaders isolated from the relevant
activity, Coalition air assets remained virtually unscathed. Stealth assets, for
example suffered no losses. Non-stealth aircraft suffered loss rates of
approximately one loss in 3,000 sorties.(12) Out of a total of 110,000 allied sorties,
only 14 fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft were lost.(13)
Although surprise, and overwhelming mass may have contributed to these low
casualties, some analysts attribute the intensity of the conflict with saving coalition
lives. If the aircraft attrition rates experienced in longer, but less intense conflicts
-- such as in Vietnam -- were applied to Operation Desert Storm, for instance, more
than 1,000 aircraft would have been destroyed.(14)
While the attack's tempo was impressive, no military advantage would have been
gained if the weapons had not reached their mark. The accuracy of PGMs make
hyperwar more lethal than anything previous. Depending on who you believe, the
6,520 tons of PGMs dropped in Iraq hit their targets between 80 and 90 percent
of the time.(15) Contrasting the effectiveness of PGMs, the 81,980 tons of "dumb"
bombs dropped on targets in Kuwait and Iraq hit their targets only 25 percent of
the time.(16) The high number and percentage of precision guided munitions made
each sortie very lethal.
The Low Altitude Navigation Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) was
reportedly particularly effective in delivering as many as 1,700 laser guided
bombs.(17) Pairs of F-15Es reportedly used LANTIRN to great effect by destroying 16
tanks in approximately 30 minutes. The F-15s carry only eight GBU-12 PGMs
each.(18)
Iraq had more than 4,000 tanks and thousands of artillery pieces and armored
personnel carriers (APCs) in Kuwait, most of which were protected by earthen
fortifications. Against traditional air bombardments these assets would have been
highly survivable. But in Operation Desert Storm, the use of precision guided
munitions and imaging infrared sensors laid waste to these targets. The majority
of Iraq's prewar inventory of heavy armor was destroyed before the ground
campaign even started.
A much televised testament to the war's destruction concerns the "death's
highway" route of an Iraqi armored column on the road to Basra late in the
conflict. Reports indicate that individual Iraqis panicked at the rate of their
destruction and actually blasted other Iraqi vehicles in an attempt to clear an
escape route.(19) The peak rate of destruction of Iraqi armored vehicles during
Operation Desert Storm was over 500 vehicles per day.(20)
This new lethality is one of several factors that contributed to another attribute of
Hyperwar; an unprecedented scope and complexity of attack. The scope of the air
campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime was incredibly broad. Air interdiction,
defined by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as: "Air operations conducted to destroy,
neutralize or delay the enemy's military potential before it can be brought to bear
effectively against friendly forces at such distance from friendly forces that detailed
integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not
required"(21) has been an air power objective almost since the dawn of airpower.
What is different about hyperwar, is that it appears that the operational abilities
derived from the technological components allows targeters to interpret an "enemy's
military potential" very loosely.
What happened in Desert Storm is that a very large percentage of strategic aerial
missions were against industry, power generation, roads and bridges versus directly
against Iraq's military assets. A conventional aerial campaign, for example, would
target those assets that could be destroyed while suffering a tolerable rate of
attrition; a few percent. Those forces that are too well defended must be attacked
or circumvented in other means. As the earlier discussion on intensity and
attrition illustrated, however, Coalition aircraft suffered negligible attrition. Iraq's
assets lay prone and everything was attacked. From the beginning of the
campaign, Desert Storm decision makers planned to bomb heavily the Iraqi
"military-related industrial systems" and infrastructure, while leaving "most of the
basic economic infrastructure of the country intact."(22) What was not apparent or
what was ignored, was that the military and civilian infrastructures were
inextricably woven. It appears that in the future, non-combatants will suffer more
from the immediate and long term affects of hyperwar than combatants. A
subsequent section on the consequences of Hyperwar will discuss this phenomenon
in more detail.
Hyperwar's final characteristics are mass and complexity. What was truly
revolutionary, rather than merely evolutionary, about Hyperwar, was the
commander's ability to coordinate such a wide range of disparate assets in real-time. A great deal of this ability was derived from making use of space-based
assets which provided Coalition commanders with a view of the battlefield that
exceeded anything previously experienced. Satellite communications allowed in-theater commanders the ability to communicate with, and coordinate subordinates
like never before. The air campaign's early strikes targeted the entire target base
to achieve nearly simultaneous impact against all target sets. Previous campaigns
would only strike one target set at a time.(23) Defense space-based assets provided
75 percent of all intra- and inter-theater satellite communications.(24) In addition to
providing crucial navigation information in the featureless terrain, GPS was
integrated with the fire control systems of fighter aircraft and stand-off PGMs to
increase accuracy and increase stand-off range.(25) Weather satellites greatly
increased the effectiveness of the "great Scud hunt." Desert Storm can justifiably
be called "the first space war."
This superior ability to detect, target, communicate and plan translated into a
massive attack. Iraq's impressive air defense, for example, was literally
overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacking aircraft. The Department of
Defense claims that "nothing approaching the depth, breadth, magnitude, and
simultaneity of this coordinated air attack had been previously achieved."(26) In toto,
88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq and occupied Kuwait,(27) and Iraq was
on the receiving end of half again as many PGMs in 43 days as Vietnam did in
eight years of that war.(28)
CONSEQUENCES OF HYPERWAR
At first blush, it appears that the consequences of Hyperwar relative to traditional
conflicts are benign. More Americans were shot and killed in Washington DC
during Operation Desert Shield/Storm than in Iraq. Hyperwar brought the boys
home with amazingly low casualties. One can't argue with that. On closer
examination, however, it appears that the repercussions from Hyperwar's
destruction are profound.
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: INFRASTRUCTURE TARGETS
In past wars, civilian suffering was often caused by damage collateral to military
assets. In Hyperwar, civilian suffering is caused not by near misses, but direct
hits; on the country's industrial infrastructure. During Operation Desert Storm, the
Department of Defense carried out a targeting policy that minimized the civilian
casualties that often result from collateral damage. Although this policy is
commendable, in Hyperwar, the deaths resulting from collateral damage are almost
irrelevant.
As mentioned in an earlier section, Hyperwar planner's carry out a tandem, if
incongruous, strategy of decapitation and "ultra air interdiction." In attempt to shut
down Saddam's military machine, the Coalition heavily targeted Iraq's electricity
and fuel production infrastructure. During Desert Storm, the allies flew over 200
sorties against the electrical plants and over 500 against 28 oil targets.(29) More
than half of the 20 electrical generator sites were 100 percent destroyed. Only
three escaped totally unscathed.(30) The intent, of this bombing is to deprive the Iraqi
military the means to fight. By the end of the air campaign 42 of 53 Iraqi bridges
were rendered impassable by Coalition attacks.(31) Modern forces are highly
dependent on electricity for communications, radars and computers. Dependence on
fuel is self-evident. Destroying the means of producing electricity is particularly
attractive because it cannot be stockpiled.
Unfortunately for the civilian population, the electrical and petroleum infrastructure
in Iraq, as well as other countries, is inherently a dual use commodity. Desert
Storm planners recognized this from the outset.(32) What they might not have
recognized, was how extreme hardships this type of campaign would cause civilians.
The bombing of Iraq's infrastructure was so effective, that on either the sixth or
seventh day of the air war, the Iraqis shut down what remained of their national
power grid.(33) It was useless.
Immediately following the war, Iraq was producing only 4 percent of its pre-war
electrical capacity. Four months after the war's end, this electrical generation had
only reached 20 to 25 percent of the prewar capacity of approximately 9,500
megawatts. This generating capacity is roughly analogous to that of the 1920's --
before Iraq had access to refrigeration and sewage treatment.(34)
The result of this destruction has led to severe malnutrition and endemic levels of
typhoid and cholera. For the vast majority of Iraqis, there food is not refrigerated,
their sewage is not treated, nor is their water purified. A Harvard team which
visited Iraq shortly after the war projected that more than 170,000 children under
five years of age will die this year from the delayed effects of the bombing.(35) The
longer-term affects on the civilian population is anyone's guess.
What darkens this picture even more than the number of deaths is that industrial bombing of the breadth and scope of that experienced in Desert Storm, is of questionable military utility and incongruous with Hyperwar's objectives. If one were fighting a conflict that required years to defeat an enemy -- such as World War II, Vietnam, or the Iran/Iraq "War of the Cities" -- industrial infrastructure attacks make some sense. Destroying power generation capabilities, and like assets reduces the enemy's ability to regenerate strength. It does not, however, immediately take his strength away. Bombing infrastructure attacks the "tail" not the "tooth," and therefore, the adverse effects on the military are not immediately evident. The negative impact of infrastructure on the civilians is immediate, since states frequently sacrifice the civilians to preserve the military while in a state of war. (Saddam Hussein apparently had no objections to sacrificing his civilians in peacetime)(36)
Hyperwar's primary objective, however, is decapitation. A quick
victory with few friendly casualties. Industrial infrastructure bombing appears ill
suited for this purpose. It certainly doesn't "hurt" military objectives to target
infrastructure targets, but one must wonder if the ends justify the means.
It appears that there is a strong technological imperative that drives Hyperwar. An
extremely wide range of targets are attacked, not because they need to be, but
because they can be. Because they had to be concerned for the safety of friendly
personnel, past decision makers had to balance the need to destroy a particular
target with the costs associated with doing so. When, one suffers virtually no
casualties and has unrestrained freedom of action, however, the costs that often
temper what is attacked and what is not attacked, is absent. In July 1990, for
example, war gammers at Shaw Air Force Base identified approximately 30
strategic targets in Iraq. By January 17 that list had grown to 400 sites. Once the
airwar began, and Desert Storm were aware of their capabilities, the strategic
target list almost doubled.(37)
An illustrative case study of hyperwar infrastructure overkill is the al-Hartha
power plant in Basra. The electrical power generator for Iraq's second largest city
was attacked the first night of Operation Desert Storm. The initial attack shut
down the plant completely; damaging the water treatment system and all four
steam boilers. During the course of the conflict, al-Hartha was bombed 13 times,
even though there would be little opportunity to repair the power station during
a major war. The final attack bounced rubble one half hour before the cease fire
on February 28. If the intent of bombing al-Hartha was to deprive Basra of
electricity for the duration of the war, the first attack seems more than adequate.
Reportedly, the power plant was bombed so frequently because it was designated
a back-up target for pilots unable to attack their primary targets.(38)
Another explanation for this overkill, is that instead of trying to influence the
immediate course of the war, the goal of multiple bombings late in the war, was
to create postwar influence over Iraq. It is very difficult to repair a power
generator, for example, when the repair personnel have no power. Destroying the
large oil refinery at Beiji -- located in the militarily distant corner of Northeastern
Iraq -- would have no impact on the immediate conflict, but Iraq would probably
be forced to supplicate assistance from the West to repair the facility. This facility
was not attacked until the final days of the air campaign.
One could shut down an electrical power generating facility for over a year by
destroying switching yards, transformers and other peripheral components. In
several occasions, however, Coalition aircraft destroyed main generators and other
central elements that would take approximately five years to repair; with Western
assistance.(39) Rather than kow tow to the West, however, Saddam Hussein has
decided to prolong the repairing of his industrial infrastructure by depending on
indigenous assets. This has proved much to the detriment of his civilian population.
Another deficiency of Hyperwar is that the rapid tempo of the attack can outpace
the ability of intelligence assets to support the campaign. During the infrastructure
bombing there wasn't always a high degree of confidence that the targets attacked
were the correct ones. Several targets were reportedly bombed after they were
already destroyed.(40) While the Coalition was bombing infrastructure targets in NE
Iraq that would have immediate affects on the civilian population but marginal
affects on the military, pilots were regularly bypassing targets that were later
determined to be central to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.(41) The bottom line on
comprehensive infrastructure bombing is that it kills civilians while the adversary's
military remains largely intact.
One of the most frequently heard criticisms of Operation Desert Storm is that it
made little positive impact on the region's geopolitics. Kuwait, of course has been
returned to its previous condition of monarchy, but coalition's infrastructure
targeting left Saddam's military largely intact. The State Department estimates
that Iraq's military remains sufficiently potent to threaten Saudi Arabia.(42) The
world today would be a much better place if Saddam's military was in a state of
disarray and the civilian populace of Iraq were healthy and more able to present
some form of political opposition.
TEMPTATION TO PREEMPTION
In Operation Desert Storm, the only restraint on Coalition forces was self-restraint.
All targets in Iraq were laid bare. But in Hyperwar, the motives for self-restraint
are weak. The benefits derived from surprise and preemption are so great that he
who hesitates is truly lost. In future crises, there may be little weight behind
pursuing non-violent means of ameliorating a potential conflict. Knowing the
penalties of enduring the defensive end of a hyperwar, decision makers will be
under great pressure to attack first. This phenomenon is similar to, but probably
more powerful than, the "temptation to preemption" decision makers feel pertaining
to counter-air operations described earlier in this study.
A related issue, is that hyperwar blurs the line between conventional and
unconventional weapons. While no present nor foreseen conventional weapon packs
the destructiveness of a nuclear bomb, during Desert Storm, precision weapons were
devastatingly effective. The United States conducted "strategic bombing" with
conventional weapons. Perhaps most important, the psychological impediment to
using nuclear or chemical weapons is absent when employing conventional weapons.
FRIENDLY FIRE DEATHS
A final consequence of Hyperwar that justifies close analysis is that of friendly fire
deaths. Hyperwar's intensity, lethality, speed and coordination of disparate
resources will cause increasing problems for those planners trying to minimize
deaths resulting from "friendly fire." While the Department of Defense claims as
an accomplishment a strategy "crafted to minimize both collateral damage and
friendly casualties,"(43) Operation Desert Storm resulted in the highest percentage
of casualties resulting from friendly fire in any recorded war.(44) Real-time space-based intelligence and surveillance helped lift the fog of war in certain contexts, but
the complexity and speed of future hyperwars may generate a self-imposed haze;
much to the detriment of our own troops.
FUTURE HYPERWARS
Presently, the precision guided munitions that wrought such efficient damage in
Iraq require a "man in the loop." Because the present targeting and guidance
technologies require that someone, either in the air or ground, must designate the
target with a laser or other device, one aircraft can drop one "smart" bomb on one
target. More advanced weapons are under development, however, that do not
require prolonged human attention to accurately strike point targets.(45) In the
future, strategic bombers will be able to drop precision guided weapons en masse.
Thus, the intensity and destructiveness of Hyperwar could increase dramatically.
Instead of 42 F-117s dropping 42 smart bombs in a short time period, tens of B-52s, B-2s or some follow-on aircraft, could drop thousands of these more
autonomous weapons in the same time period. Furthermore, PGMS are undergoing
their own evolution. Future munitions will be able to autonomously seek out and
destroy moving armored vehicles.
Rather than requiring 5 1/2 months to build-up a large force of tactical aircraft in
the theater of operations, future Hyperwar planners will be able unleash this
intense destructiveness at the drop of a hat. Making use of the strategic surprise
engendered by long range and stealth, future decision makers would be able to
preempt potential conflicts strategically -- from thousands of miles away -- and
return to the safety of home bases.
With such lethal abilities, the "traditional" Hyperwar temptation to preemption --
striking the first blow in a crisis -- could grow. Instead of waiting for a crisis to
build, future Hyperwar planners would literally have the ability to eliminate a
problem before it became a crisis. Unilaterally stopping invasions, defuzing low
intensity conflicts, or removing potential threats generated by proliferation via the
"Israeli method" may prove an option too tempting for decision makers to resist.
1. Kearney, Thomas & Bailey, Rosanne, "Combat Enters Hyperwar Era," Defense News, date, page.
2. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April, pages.
3. Kearney, Thomas & Bailey, Rosanne, "Combat Enters Hyperwar Era," Defense News, Date, page.
4. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-4.
5. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.4-2.
6. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-3.
7. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-7.
8. John Collins, "Desert Shield and Desert Storm: Implications for Future US Force Requirements," CRS Report For Congress, Washington, DC 19 April 1991, p.25.
9. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment, Washington DC, 14 November, p.2.
10. Bellman, Barton, "US Bombs Missed 70% of the time," The Washington Post.
11. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-8.
12. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment, Washington DC, 14 November, p.2.
13. Zakheim, Dov, "Top Guns: Rating Weapons Systems in the Gulf War," Policy Review, Summer 1991, p.15.
14. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment, Washington DC, 14 November, p.2.
15. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to
Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July
1991, p.6-2. 80 percent.
Bellman, Barton, "US Bombs Missed 70% of the time," The Washington Post. 90 percent.
16. Bellman, Barton, "US Bombs Missed 70% of the time," The Washington Post.
17. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-3.
18. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-3.
19. Lionetti, Maj. Gen. Donald, "Air Defense: No Road to Basra," Army, July 1991, p.16.
20. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment, Washington DC, 14 November, p.9.
21. Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, DC 1 January 1986, p.21.
22. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-6.
23. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-7.
24. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-9.
25. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-9.
26. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.4-3.
27. Bellman, Barton, "US Bombs Missed 70% of the time," The Washington Post.
28. Bellman, Barton, "US Bombs Missed 70% of the time," The Washington Post.
29. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
30. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
31. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.6-3.
32. "It was recognized from the outset that this campaign would cause some unavoidable hardships for the Iraqi populace. It was impossible, for example, to destroy the electrical power supply for Iraqi command and control facilities or chemical weapons factories, yet leave untouched that portion of the electricity supplied to the general populace."
Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-7.
33. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
34. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
35. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
36. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking
Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy
Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment,
Washington DC, 14 November, p.2.
Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
37. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
38. Debusmann, Bernd, "Allied Motives Queried In Raids on Iraqi Plant," The Washington Post, 28 January 1992, p.A14.
39. Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq," The Washington Post, April/May 1991.
40. Jack Anderson, Michael Binstein, "Operation Intelligence Breakdown," The Washington Post, 13 February 1992, B23.
41. Jasper Welch, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Washington Strategy Seminar Series on Air power and the New Security Environment, Washington DC, 14 November, p.3.
42. Hoagland, Jim, "A Year After Desert Storm: What the War Didn't Resolve," The Washington Post, 12 January 1992, p.C4.
43. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict: An Interim Report to Congress, United States Department of Defense, Washington, DC July 1991, p.2-7.
44. Need footnote. Should be plenty in the Washington Post spring to fall. Ask John.
45. Welch, Jasper, "Technology and Military Strategy: Looking Forward to the Uncertainty of the 1990s," Background Paper, The Washington Strategy Seminar, Washington, DC 14 November 1991, p.8.