Pilots crank up ‘shock and awe’ operations over Iraq

ABOARD THE USS CONSTELLATION-Marine Corps fighter pilot Capt. Guy Ravey's voice went up a few octaves Thursday night on his cockpit radio when he saw a green blur with a white tail rise like a bottle rocket in front of his F-18 fighter. Quickly, Ravey checked his avionics systems to see if he had become a target. Then he realized he was seeing a U.S. Patriot missile racing upwards of 80,000 feet to pick off an Iraqi warhead.

"Last night was definitely different than the other times I flew over Iraq. [Before] there was nothing going on. Now there's a lot happening," said Ravey, who has regularly patrolled the southern non-fly zone from the Constellation aircraft carrier here in the Persian Gulf.

Ravey said it was clear from the Patriot streaks, muzzles from Marine artillery and burning oil fields that the United States mission in Iraq has moved into a much more active phase. He said more anti-aircraft artillery was fired last night than he had seen on any previous missions, and that all the U.S. and coalition aircraft in the sky made him feel as if he were flying in the cramped airspace over southern California.

Ravey's mission Thursday was primarily to serve as a backup force for Marines as they moved into Iraq. However, he expects that before long he will be dropping Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs on Iraqi targets. "Shock and awe is coming. I'm sure it is," he said.

On the carrier's hangar deck, signs of the escalating operations could be measured by the rows and rows of bunker-busting JDAMs and anti-tank laser-guided missiles competing for space with fighter aircraft. Bombs are not ordinarily stored on the hangar deck, but the ship has run out of space to store them in its magazines and in designated areas along the flight deck known as bomb farms. Bomb production aboard the ship has tripled in recent days.

Chief Warrant Officer Harold Hill, who manages the hangar, said bombs can be moved more quickly from the hangar to the flight deck than from magazines several decks below because of the hangar's large elevators, which are usually used to ferry aircraft up and down. "We don't bring weapons up liken this unless we are going to use them," Hill said.

Rear Adm. Barry Costello, commander of the Constellation Battle Carrier Group, said Friday that operations against Iraq had entered a "transitional phase" aimed at "preparing the battlefield" for troops to move into the country. In the last 24 hours, he said, the carrier had launched about 100 combat sorties, hitting communication facilities in western Iraq and troops and equipment in the south near Basra with GPS-guided JDAMs and laser-guided missiles. Additionally, he said, Tomahawk missiles launched from four U.S. and two British ships hit targets in Iraq.

U.S. and allied forces also continued to drop leaflets urging Iraqis to give up. "In the event of a conflict, Iraqi units that don't immediately surrender will be destroyed by coalition ships and aircraft," one of the dollar-bill sized leaflets said.