U.S.

Navy Officials: Wind On Iraq's Side

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 22, 2001 / 8:14 AM EST / CBS

Iraq has Mother Nature to thank for U.S. misses during a recent air strike, according to Pentagon officials.

The Navy has concluded that most of the precision-guided weapons it used in the Feb. 16 attack on Iraq went astray because on-board sensors had too little time to adjust the bombs' flight path to account for heavy winds near the targets, defense officials said Monday.

The solution, these officials said, is to ensure that in future missions, the bomb is programmed to level out sooner upon approaching the target. The bomb needs to be in level flight for the sensor to correctly calculate the wind factor and allow for course corrections.

On a level course, however, the bomb is more vulnerable to hostile air defenses, so mission planners seek to make the bomb's final approach to the target as short as possible.

The bomb, known as the Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, is 14 feet long and navigates on a glide path using signals from global positioning satellites. An advantage of the JSOW over conventional bombs is that the pilot can launch it dozens of miles from the target, avoiding concentrations of hostile air defenses.

'Precision-Guided' Weapon

The Joint Standoff Weapon, a so-called precision-guided weapon, entered service with the Navy in January 1999.

Click here for more information about the weapon from the Federation of American Scientists.

For more about the weapon from Raytheon, its maker, click here.

Prior to entering level flight upon approach to the target, the bomb makes a series of turns and maneuvers to avoid known air-defense sites. Once it gets near the target, it dispenses 145 incendiary bomblets, each the size of a soda can, over an area nearly as big as a football field.

In the Feb. 16 attack, the bomblets drifted from the targets because the mother bomb had not fully adjusted its course for wind.

The defense officials who discussed the matter Monday spoke on condition they not be identified.

Officially, the Pentagon has not acknowledged the specific weapons used in the attack against Iraqi air defense sites, let alone the exact results or the reasons for the relative inaccuracy of the bombs.

Just hours after the attac, the Pentagon said it had accomplished its mission. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters, "All indications we have are that the munitions and the strikes were conducted efficiently and effectively. We have no indications that there were any of the strikes that might have gone amiss."

Last week, however, other Pentagon officials said it was apparent that fewer than half of the 20-some radar sites that were targeted had been damaged. The Navy's JSOW bombs were used exclusively for that mission.

President Bush said last week the attack accomplished its goal.

"I, we, had two missions. One was to send a clear signal to Saddam, and the other was to degrade the capacity of Saddam to injure our pilots. I believe we succeeded in both those missions," Mr. Bush said.

As part of the same attack, Air Force F-15E fighters launched AGM-130 bombs at command-and-control facilities that the Iraqis had been using to improve the coordination of various elements of their air defense network. These bombs were more accurate and did extensive damage, according to Pentagon officials.

To some, the relative inaccuracy of the JSOW weapon used against Iraq was less disturbing than the mere fact of its use. William Arkin, a military analyst and columnist for Washingtonpost.com, the newspaper's Internet site, calls them "cluster bombs that have no real aimpoint and that kill and wound innocent civilians."

So far this month, Arkin said, one Iraqi civilian has been killed and nine wounded from detonations of unexploded cluster bomblets presumably left over from the 1991 Gulf War.