Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Air Force got tired of being left out of the parade

So now they are dropping bombs with a villianous zeal in Iraq to prove they are worthy of mighty appropriations in the next budget.
The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaeda safe houses, insurgent bombmaking facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power.

Top commanders said that better intelligence-gathering allows them to identify and hit extremist strongholds with bombs and missiles, and they predicted that extensive airstrikes will continue this year as the United States seeks to flush insurgents out of havens in and around Baghdad and to the north in Diyala province.

The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006.
Bombs work good in the city. You will almost always find a bunch of dead "insurgents" after each bomb drop.

Comments:
No, the real reason for the increase in air strikes is a desire to reduce casualties amongst ground troops -- which similarly is not working, since casualties amongst ground troops are still at their highest level since the beginning of the occupation.

It also doesn't help that most of the Army's tanks and helicopters are out of service because of the dust eating up their turbines, so the Air Farce is pretty much the only fire support they can depend upon nowdays.
 

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