The Other Surge: U.S. Escalates Air War in Iraq

WASHINGTON — South of Baghdad on Wednesday, forces from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division spotted a set of bunkers identified as training sites for al-Qaida recruits.

No firefight followed. No American troops were killed. Instead, the bunkers were destroyed by 34,000 pounds of satellite-guided bombs dropped from a B-1 Lancer flying high overhead.

Behind the hotly debated troop surge of the past year has been a far more dramatic increase in the use of air strikes in Iraq. Bombs were dropped in 1,206 separate missions last year, five times as many as the year before.

In 2007, there were more air strikes in Iraq than during the previous three years combined.

While the public and political focus over the past year has centered on the addition of some 30,000 U.S. ground troops in Iraq since last spring, the air surge appears to have played a vital role in both reducing American casualties in recent months and helping to disrupt and demoralize insurgents and terrorists, military officials say.

"Keeping soldiers off the ground keeps them safe," said Maj. James Wilburn, daytime chief of operations in Iraq for the 2nd Brigade combat team of the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Ft. Stewart, Ga. "So we make every effort to use air assets when circumstances allow."

Wednesday's air strike — one of the biggest since the war began nearly five years ago — was just one of more than 65 missions flown that day.

Navy F-18 Super Hornets took out several suspected roadside bombs and a weapons cache. Air Force F-16s destroyed a pair of houses that insurgents had booby-trapped to explode upon entry. Across Iraq, dozens of warplanes flew missions to support U.S. ground forces, protect convoys and pipelines and deter insurgents and al-Qaida affiliates.

The bombing escalation has raised concerns of increased civilian casualties, and that such deaths could undermine the effort to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens.

The Air Force seeks to minimize the risk of civilian deaths by alerting civilians in advance of strikes and fine-tuning the size of the bombs used to destroy a target.

Still, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq and other human rights groups have expressed fear at the risk to civilians from U.S. military operations.

But Marc Garlasco of the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch, says the air surge has not caused "an appreciable loss of civilian life."

"It is very deliberate, they are very careful," Garlasco said. "The way that the Air Force is fighting there now is in lock step with the hearts and minds strategy on the ground."

A perceived link between civilian deaths and aerial bombing traditionally has deterred commanders from using air power against insurgencies like the one in Iraq.

But U.S. ground commanders "are now seeing that it can save lives of the soldiers on the ground, without jeopardizing the all-important [Iraqi] civilian morale," said Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force.

Precision bombs guided by lasers or satellites now typically land within 10 feet of a target — between 40 and 120 times more accurate than artillery shells, said Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy Air Force chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The ability to hit targets with great accuracy means smaller bombs can be used to destroy a target without inflicting broader damage.

"By far — by far — surface forces create much more collateral damage," Deptula said.

And the use of unmanned aircraft like the Predator means mission controllers can survey an area just before an attack and make adjustments if needed to minimize civilian casualties.

That happened during an operation on Jan. 10, when B-1 bombers and F-16s dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on al-Qaida positions near Baghdad in a 10-minute air strike, the largest in Iraq since the early days of the war.

U.S. and Iraqi forces had warned tribal and community leaders to clear civilians from the area in advance of the strike. Still, images from an unmanned aircraft showed a risk of civilian casualties, and so the strike was delayed and some targets scratched, military officials said. No civilian casualties were reported.

In part, the success of the air campaign has come because of the tough fighting that's been done by ground forces. U.S. troops, working with Iraqis in small units posted neighborhood by neighborhood, have pushed many insurgents and terrorists out of Baghdad and other cities and into less populated rural areas, where they are highly visible to pilots and cameras flying overhead.

The willingness of Sunni tribal and community leaders to help U.S. forces take on al-Qaida has also played a role, dramatically increasing the tips forces can act on to identify hide-outs, weapons caches and other potential bombing targets.

As that has happened, U.S. strategy in Iraq has shifted in the face of the political pressure to reduce American casualties in a war that has taken the lives of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops.

"We're seeing the maturing of the area of operation," Dunlap said. "And we're seeing a better understanding of what the technology can do."

On just about any given day now, the skies over Iraq are streaked with the contrails of an armada of U.S. warplanes, ranging from the mighty B-1 Lancers to the tiny unmanned Predators. Primarily used to keep watch over an area, the Predators are also commonly used to strike at insurgents, firing off 100-pound Hellfire missiles.

The air surge has increased Air Force deployments to Iraq.

Dyess Air Force Base, near Abilene, Texas, normally averages between 400 and 500 forces overseas at any one time.

Last September, the base had more than 1,280 personnel deployed to the region in Iraq and Afghanistan, where air strikes also increased dramatically last year, said base spokesman Lt. Will Powell.