Did the U.S. Lie About Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq?

Tomgram: Nick Turse asks, Did the U.S. Lie about Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq?

By Tom Engelhardt

Created May 25 2007 - 9:59am

In a recent inside-the-fold round-up of the previous day's mayhem in Iraq,

David S. Cloud, writing [1] for my hometown paper, devoted 729 words to an

account of American casualties from IEDs ("Six American soldiers and their

interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad..."), Iraqi

Army, police, insurgent, and civilian casualties, and various bombers -- all

of whom were on the ground: suicide bombers, car bombers, truck bombers.

Nine words in the report were devoted to the American air war: "American

troops killed eight suspected insurgents on Sunday, the military said -- six

in an airstrike near Garma, in Anbar Province, and two southwest of

Baghdad." We have no further information on that air strike in Garma; no

idea what kind of aircraft struck, or with what weaponry, or how those in

the air were so certain that those dead on the ground were "suspected

insurgents," or who exactly suspected them of being insurgents. The

equivalent Washington Post round-up [2] did not even mention that the

operation involved an air strike.

This has been fairly typical of the last few years of minimalist to

nonexistent mainstream media coverage of the air war in Iraq, based almost

singularly on similarly minimalist military press handouts or statements. We

do, however, know something about an air strike, also "in the Garma area,"

last December in which the U.S. military announced that it had "destroyed a

foreign fighter safe house in a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad,

killing five insurgents, two women and a child." Local residents later

claimed [3] to an Iraqi journalist that the strike had actually "killed nine

members of the same family -- three women, three girls and three boys -- and

wounding a man." Air power, for all its "precision," remains a remarkably

indiscriminate form of warfare, though headlines [4] like this one from the

BBC, are seldom seen here: "US attack 'kills Iraqi children.'"

We also know from a recent report that the ill-covered operations of the

U.S. Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan have nonetheless significantly

degraded American equipment, in the air as on the ground. According to the

Air Combat Command's Gen. Ronald Keys [5], U.S. planes and helicopters are

wearing down (and out) from conducting so many missions "in harsh

environments." For instance, the general tells us that the A-10 -- a plane

used regularly because "its cannon is particularly effective in strafing" --

is increasingly likely to have "cracked wings."

Keep in mind that, however poorly covered these last years, air power has

long been the American way of war. After all, it was no mistake that the

Iraq war began with a pure show of air power meant to "shock and awe" not

just Iraqis but the world. And yet, in recent years in Iraq, the only

"bombers" we hear about are of the suicide car or truck variety. This is

strange indeed, because nothing should have stopped American journalists

from visiting our air bases in the region, from spending time with pilots,

or from simply looking up at the evidently crowded skies over their hotels.

The only good mainstream report on American air power in Iraq in this period

has been Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece, "Up in the Air," [6] in December

2005 -- significantly enough, by a journalist who had never set foot in

Iraq. He reminded us then of something forgotten for several decades -- that

President Richard Nixon's "Vietnamization" plan to withdraw all American

"ground troops" (but not tens of thousands of U.S. advisors) from South

Vietnam also involved a massive ratcheting upward of the American air war.

Hersh reported that, in late 2005, George W. Bush's Iraqification formula

[7] ("Our strategy is straightforward: As Iraqis stand up, Americans will

stand down.") was but a Vietnamization plan in sheep's clothing. As he wrote

at the time: "A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the

President's public statements, is that the departing American troops will be

replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are

seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the

weakest Iraqi combat units."

In recent months, as the revived Taliban has surged in Afghanistan and U.S.

as well as NATO troops have proven in short supply, this is just what has

happened. Air power [8] has increasingly been called upon; civilian

casualties have been spiking; and Afghans have been growing ever more upset

and oppositional. Iraq will undoubtedly be next. There is, as Nick Turse

indicates below, already evidence that the use of air power is "surging" in

that country.

Here, then, is a post-surge formula to keep in mind: "Withdrawal" equals an

increase in air power (as long as the commitment to withdraw isn't a total

one). This is no less true of the "withdrawal" plans of the major Democratic

presidential candidates and the Democratic congressional mainstream as it is

of any administration planning for future draw-downs. All of these plans are

largely confined to withdrawing or redeploying American "combat brigades,"

which add up to only something like half of all American forces in Iraq.

None of this will necessarily lessen the American war there. As Patrick

Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East

Policy, told Hersh, it may only "change the mix of the forces doing the

fighting." A partial withdrawal is actually likely, at least for a time, to

increase the destructive brutality of the war on the American side.

Since 2004 [9], Tomdispatch has, from a distance, been following as

carefully as possible what can be known about the American air war in Iraq

(and Afghanistan). Tomdispatch regular Nick Turse has been heroically on the

job [10] of late. The piece that follows is, I believe, the best assessment

of the air war that can, at present, be found in our media world. When you

read this piece about what we do -- and mainly don't -- know on the subject,

you need to imagine that somewhere down the line, as "withdrawal" begins,

there is likely to be worse to come, possibly far worse, in terms of

destruction from the air. (This piece appears in abbreviated form in the

latest issue of the Nation Magazine [11].)

-- Tom

Did the U.S. Lie about Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq? The Shape of a Shadowy Air

War

By Nick Turse

Did the U.S. military use cluster bombs in Iraq in 2006 and then lie about

it? Does the U.S. military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds

fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians

have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?

These are just two of the many unanswered questions related to the largely

uncovered air war the U.S. military has been waging in Iraq.

What we do know is this: Since the major combat phase of the war ended in

April 2003, the U.S. military has dropped at least 59,787 pounds of

air-delivered cluster bombs in Iraq -- the very type of weapon that Marc

Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls,

"the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon

that is in use." We also know that, according to expert opinion, rockets and

cannon fire from U.S. aircraft may account for most U.S. and

coalition-attributed Iraqi civilian deaths and that the Pentagon has

restocked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these weapons in recent

years.

Unfortunately, thanks to an utter lack of coverage by the mainstream media,

what we don't know about the air war in Iraq so far outweighs what we do

know that anything but the most minimal picture of the nature of destruction

from the air in that country simply can't be painted. Instead, think of the

story of U.S. air power in Iraq as a series of tiny splashes of lurid color

on a largely blank canvas.

Cluster Bombs

Even among the least covered aspects of the air war in Iraq, the question of

cluster-bomb (CBU) use remains especially shadowy. This is hardly

surprising. After all, at a time when many nations are moving toward banning

the use of cluster munitions -- at a February 2007 conference in Oslo,

Norway, 46 of 48 governments represented supported a declaration for a new

international treaty and ban on the weapons by 2008 -- the U.S. stands with

China, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia in opposing new limits of any kind.

Little wonder. The U.S. military has a staggering arsenal of these weapons.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the Army holds 88% of the

Pentagon's CBU inventory -- at least 638.3 million of the cluster bomblets

that are stored inside each cluster munition; the Air Force and Navy,

according to Department of Defense figures, have 22.2 million and 14.7

million of the bomblets, respectively. And even these numbers are considered

undercounts by experts.

A cluster bomb bursts above the ground, releasing hundreds of smaller,

deadly submunitions or "bomblets" that increase the weapon's kill radius

causing, as Garlasco puts it, "indiscriminate effects." It's a weapon, he

notes, that "cannot distinguish between a civilian and a soldier when

employed because of its wide coverage area. If you're dropping the weapon

and you blow your target up you're also hitting everything within a football

field. So to use it in proximity to civilians is inviting a violation of the

laws of armed conflict."

Worse yet, U.S. cluster munitions have a high failure rate. A sizeable

number of dud bomblets fall to the ground and become de facto landmines

which, Garlasco points out, are "already banned by most nations on this

planet." Garlasco adds: "I don't see how any use of the current U.S. cluster

bomb arsenal in proximity to civilian objects can be defended in any way as

being legal or legitimate."

In an email message earlier this year, a U.S. Central Command Air Forces

(CENTAF) spokesman told this reporter that "there were no instances" of CBU

usage in Iraq in 2006. But military documents suggest this might not be the

case.

Last year, Titus Peachey of the Mennonite Central Committee -- an

organization that has studied the use of cluster munitions for more than 30

years -- filed a Freedom of Information Act request concerning the U.S.

military's use of cluster bombs in Iraq since "major combat operations"

officially ended in that country. In their response, the Air Force confirmed

that 63 CBU-87 cluster bombs were dropped in Iraq between May 1, 2003 and

August 1, 2006. A CENTAF spokesman contacted for confirmation that none of

these were dropped on or after January 1, 2006, offered no response. His

superior officer, Lt. Col. Johnn Kennedy, the Deputy Director of CENTAF

Public Affairs, similarly ignored this reporter's requests for

clarification.

These 12,726 BLU-97 bomblets -- each CBU-87 contains 202 BLU-97s or

"Combined Effects Bombs" (CEBs) which have anti-personnel, anti-tank, and

incendiary capabilities or "kill mechanisms" -- dropped since May 2003 are,

according to statistics provided by Human Rights Watch, in addition to

almost two million cluster submunitions used by coalition forces in Iraq in

March and April 2003.

Asked about CBU usage by the Air Force in Iraq in 2006, Ali al-Fadhily, an

independent Iraqi journalist, commented: "The use of cluster bombs is a sure

thing, but it was very difficult to prove because there were no

international experts to document it." In the past, however, international

experts have actually had a chance to examine some locations where a

fraction of the bomblets that coalition forces used have landed.

On a 2004 research trip to Iraq, for instance, Titus Peachey visited

numerous sites which had experienced such strikes. At a farm in northern

Iraq, he was shown not only impact craters from exploded bomblets on a

farmer's property but also unexploded bomblets, by a team from the Mines

Advisory Group, a humanitarian organization devoted to landmine and bomb

clearance. While "the de-miners expressed frustration that the farmer had

planted his field before it had been cleared," Peachey explained that this

was a common, if dangerous, practice in such situations. The U.S. used

similar ordnance in Laos during the Vietnam War, he pointed out, noting:

"The villagers of Laos waited more than 20 years for clearance work to get

started in their fields and villages. During that time they had no choice

but to till soil that was filled with bombs. Otherwise they could not eat.

In Iraq, the several visits that we made confirmed this very same dynamic.

People could not afford to wait until clearance teams made their farms safe

for cultivation. They had to take great risks in order to survive."

Evidence of these risks can be found in U.S. military documents. Case in

point: a June 2005 internal memorandum from the U.S. Army's 42d Infantry

Division which describes how a 15-year old Iraqi boy, working as a shepherd,

"was leading the sheep through north Tikrit, near an ammo storage site, when

he picked up a UXO [unexploded ordnance] from a cluster bomb. The UXO

detonated and he was killed." Asked to pay $3,000 in compensation for the

boy's life, the Army granted that his death was "a horrible loss for the

claimant," his mother, but concluded that there was "insufficient evidence

to indicate that US. Forces caused the death."

Iraqi documents also chronicle the effects of air-delivered cluster

munitions. Take a September 2006 report by the Conservation Center of

Environment & Reserves, an Iraqi non-governmental organization (NGO),

examining alleged violations of the laws of war by U.S. forces during the

April 2004 siege of Fallujah. According to its partial list of civilian

deaths, at least 53 people were killed by air-launched cluster bombs in the

city that April. An analysis of data collected by another Iraqi NGO, the

Iraqi Health and Social Care Organization, showed that, between March and

June 2006, of 193 war-injured casualties analyzed, 148 (77%) were the result

of cluster munitions of unspecified type.

Air War, Iraq: 2006

While cluster bombs remain a point of contention, Air Force officials do

acknowledge that U.S. military and coalition aircraft dropped at least

111,000 pounds of other types of bombs on targets in Iraq in 2006. This

figure -- 177 bombs in all -- does not include guided missiles or unguided

rockets fired, or cannon rounds expended; nor, according to a CENTAF

spokesman, does it take into account the munitions used by some Marine Corps

and other coalition fixed-wing aircraft or any Army or Marine Corps

helicopter gunships; nor does it include munitions used by the armed

helicopters of the many private security contractors [12] flying their own

missions in Iraq.

In statistics provided to me, CENTAF reported a total of 10,519 "close air

support missions" in Iraq in 2006, during which its aircraft dropped those

177 bombs and fired 52 "Hellfire/Maverick missiles." The Guided Bomb

Unit-12, a laser-guided bomb with a 500-pound general purpose warhead -- 95

of which were reportedly dropped in 2006 -- was the most frequently used

bomb in Iraq last year, according to CENTAF. In addition, 67

satellite-guided, 500-pound GBU-38s and 15 2,000-pound GBU-31/32 munitions

were also dropped on Iraqi targets in 2006, according to official U.S.

figures. There is no independent way, however, to confirm the accuracy of

this official count.

Rockets

Rockets, like the 2.75-inch Hydra-70 rocket which can be outfitted with

various warheads and fired from either fixed-wing aircraft or most military

helicopters, are conspicuously absent from the totals -- so as not to "skew

the tally and present an inaccurate picture of the air campaign," said a

CENTAF spokesman mysteriously. If released, these figures might, however,

prove impressive indeed. According to a 2005 press release [13] issued by

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who helped secure a five-year, $900 million Hydra

contract from the Army for General Dynamics, "the widely used Hydra-70

rocket. has seen extensive use in Afghanistan and Iraq. [and] has become the

world's most widely used helicopter-launched weapon system." By this April

[14], $502 million in orders for the Hydra-70 had been placed by the Army

since the contract was awarded.

Cannon Rounds

The number of cannon rounds -- essentially large caliber "bullets"-- fired

by CENTAF aircraft is also a closely guarded secret. The official reason

given is that "special forces often use aircraft such as the AC-130"

gunships, which fire cannon rounds, and "their missions and operations are

classified, so therefore these figures are not released." However, an idea

of the number of cannon rounds expended by CENTAF aircraft can be gleaned

from a description of a single operation on January 28, 2007 when U.S. F-16s

and A-10 Thunderbolts not only "dropped more than 3.5 tons of precision

munitions," but also fired "1,200 rounds of 20mm and 1,100 rounds of 30mm

cannon fire" in a five square mile area near the southern city of Najaf.

A sense of usage levels can also be gathered from a consideration of

contracts awarded in recent years. Take the 20mm PGU-28 ammunition used by

helicopters like the AH-1 Cobra and fixed-wing aircraft like the F-16. In

2001, the Department of Defense noted that it held approximately eight

million PGU-28/B rounds in its inventory. In May 2003, the Army took steps

to increase that arsenal by modifying an existing contract with General

Dynamics to add 980,064 rounds of 20mm ammunition to 1.3 million rounds

already delivered since December 2001.

In February 2004, General Dynamics was awarded an almost $11 million add-on

to an already existing contract for an extra 427,000 cannon rounds for the

AH-1 Cobra helicopter. In September 2006, General Dynamics was awarded a

similar nearly $14 million add-on for yet more 20mm ammunition; and, in

April 2007, $22 million for more of the same. That same month, the U.S. Army

Sustainment Command issued a "sources sought notice," looking for more arms

manufacturers willing to produce six million or more rounds of such ordnance

with promises of an "estimated 400% option over 5 years."

Yet, repeated inquiries about cannon rounds fired in Iraq prompted a CENTAF

spokesman to emphatically state in an email: "WE DO NOT REPORT CANNON

ROUNDS." Lt. Col. Johnn Kennedy followed up, noting, "Glad to see you

appreciate the tremendous efforts [my subordinate] has already expended on

you. Trust me, it's probably much more significant than the relentless

pursuit of the number of cannon rounds."

But the number of cannon rounds and rockets fired by U.S. aircraft is hardly

an insignificant matter. According to Les Roberts [15], co-author of two

surveys of mortality in Iraq published in the British medical journal, The

Lancet, "Rocket and cannon fire could account for most coalition-attributed

civilian deaths." He adds, "I find it disturbing that they will not release

this [figure], but even more disturbing that they have not released such

information to Congressmen who have requested it."

In 2004, Roberts himself witnessed the destruction caused by cannon fire in

Baghdad's vast Shiite slum, Sadr City. He recalls again and again passing

through 100-200 meter-wide areas of neighborhoods that had been raked by

cannon rounds. "It wasn't one house that was beat up," he recalled. "It

would be five, six, seven buildings in a row." Unlike bomb- and

artillery-ravaged Ramadi and Fallujah, Roberts noted:

"There weren't whole buildings knocked down. There were just big swaths of

many, many houses where every window was broken, where there were thousands

of pockmarks from cannon fire; not little dents, but huge chunks the size of

your fist out of the walls, and lamp-posts bent over because they lost their

integrity from being hit so many times."

This portrait of devastation is echoed in the words of journalist Ali

al-Fadhily, who told me that he had witnessed helicopter gunships in action,

noting: "The destruction they caused was always immense and casualties so

many. They simply destroy the target with every living soul inside. The

smell of death comes with those machines."

While the destructive capacity of helicopter gunships has been

well-documented and we have indications of the levels of ammunition

available to the military, the actual scale of use is hard to pin down.

Flight hours are, however, another indication. According to James Glantz of

the New York Times [16], Army helicopters logged 240,000 flight hours in

Iraq in 2005, 334,000 in 2006, and projections for 2007 suggest that the

figure will reach 400,000. (And these numbers don't even include Marine

Corps squadrons, heliborne missions by private security contractors, or

those of the nascent Iraqi Air Force.)

Top Secret Information

While military press information officers continue to stonewall on the

number of cannon rounds fired by helicopters ("We cannot comment on your

inquiry due to operational security"), earlier this year Col. Robert A.

Fitzgerald, the Marine Corps' head of aviation plans and policy, was quoted

in National Defense Magazine [17] on the subject. He claimed that, in 2006,

"Marine rotary-wing aircraft flew more than 60,000 combat flight hours, and

fixed-wing platforms completed 31,000. They dropped 80 tons of bombs and

fired 80 missiles, 3,532 rockets and more than 2 million rounds of smaller

ammunition." (When asked if Col. Fitzgerald's admission endangered

"operational security," a military spokesman responded, "I cannot comment on

the policies or release authority of a Marine colonel.")

While Col. Fitzgerald's statistics presumably also include operations in

Afghanistan (where we know U.S. air power has been called upon ever more

heavily), they do remind us that the minimalist figures regularly given out

by CENTAF hardly offer an accurate picture of the air war in Iraq. When

combined with the military's evasive non-answers, they are also a reminder

of what a dearth of information is actually available on even seemingly

innocuous matters relating to the air war in Iraq.

For example, from January through April, I posed questions to a Coalition

Press Information Center media contact -- one "SSG Wiley." After being

rebuffed on the topic of munitions expenditure, I asked, in January, about

the total number of "rotary-wing sorties" flown in 2006. The aptly-named

Wiley responded that s/he "sent it out to the relevant directorates and

[was] awaiting a response.... I will contact you as soon as I get

something." That turned out, despite follow-up, to be never. Following a

March 30th query regarding "the relevant directorates," s/he entreated me,

by email, to drop my request for information. Facing the reportorial void, I

asked if Wiley would at least provide his/her full name and title for

attribution in this article. S/he has yet to respond.

The New Iraqi Air Force

Another little-talked about aspect of the air war is the modest emergence of

a new Iraqi Air Force (IAF). Until the first Gulf War, the Iraqi military

had a large air contingent, including hundreds of modern Russian and French

combat aircraft. Today, apparently owing to U.S. reluctance to put powerful

modern weaponry of any sort in Iraqi hands, the reconstituted IAF is a

distinctly less impressive force. Instead of advanced fighters and bombers,

they fly SAMA CH-2000 two-seat, single-engine prop airplanes, SB7L-360

Seeker reconnaissance aircraft, a handful of C-130 Hercules turbo-prop cargo

planes, and Bell 206 Ranger, UH-1HP "Huey" and Russian Mi-17 helicopters

based [18] out of military installations in Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk, and

Taji.

Recently returning from a fact-finding mission in Iraq, undertaken in his

capacity as an adjunct professor at the United States Military Academy at

West Point, retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey called for [19] sending

more aircraft, including 150 helicopters, to the Iraqi security forces. In

fact, the IAF recently did take delivery of newly refurbished helicopters at

Taji Air Base, is scheduled to receive new aircraft at Kirkuk, and has

contracted to add 28 new Mi-17 helicopters in the near future.

The IAF may even be conducting full-scale air strikes of its own sometime

soon. As of April 1, 2007, five Iraqi Bell 206 Ranger pilots from its 12th

Squadron had already logged more than 188 combat hours. In a recent Air

Force Times article [20], Capt. Shane Werley, the chief American advisor to

the IAF's 2d Squadron, asserted that pilots he was working with would, at an

unspecified date, "be taking missions from the [Army's] 1st Cavalry

[Division at Taji].. The bottom line is we're getting these guys back in the

fight."

The Scale of the Carnage

Just a few dogged reporters assigned to the air-power beat might, at least,

have offered some sense of the human fall-out of this largely one-sided air

war. Since this has not been the case, we must rely on the best available

evidence. One valuable source [21] is the national cross-sectional cluster

sample survey of mortality in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, published last

year in The Lancet which used well-established survey methods that have been

proven accurate [22] in conflict zones from Kosovo to the Congo.

(Interviewers actually inspected death certificates in an overwhelming

majority of the Iraqi households surveyed.)

Carried out by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg

School of Public Health and Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya

University in Baghdad, it estimated 655,000 "excess Iraqi deaths as a

consequence of the war." The study also found that, from March 2003 through

June 2006, 13% of violent deaths in Iraq were caused by coalition air

strikes. If the 655,000 figure, including over 601,000 violent deaths, is

accurate, this would equal approximately 78,133 Iraqis killed by bombs,

missiles, rockets, or cannon rounds up to last June.

There are also indications that the air war has taken an especially grievous

toll on Iraqi children. Figures provided by The Lancet study's authors

suggest that 50% of all violent deaths of Iraqi children under 15 years of

age in that same period were due to coalition air strikes. These findings

are echoed by Conservation Center of Environment & Reserves' statistics,

indicating that no fewer of 25 of the 59 Iraqis on their partial list of

those killed by air strikes during the April 2004 siege of Fallujah were

children.

The Iraq Body Count [23] Project (IBC), a group of researchers based in the

United Kingdom who maintain a public database of Iraqi civilian deaths

resulting from the war, carefully restricts itself to media-documented

reports of civilian fatalities. While its figures are consequently much

lower than The Lancet's -- currently, its tally range stands at:

64,133-70,243 -- an analysis of its media-limited data offers a glimpse of

the human costs of the air war.

Statistics provided by the Iraq Body Count Project show that from 2003-2006,

coalition air strikes, according to media sources alone (which, as we know,

have covered the air war poorly), killed 3,615-4,083 people and left another

11,956-12,962 wounded. Last year, media reports listed between 169-200

Iraqis killed and 111-112 injured in 28 separate coalition air strikes,

according to the IBC project. These numbers also appear to be on the rise.

John Sloboda, the project's spokesperson and co-founder notes by email that,

during 2006, the "vast majority" of lethal air strikes took place during the

latter half of the year.

Asked about the assertion that the second half of 2006 was deadlier for

Iraqis, due to U.S. air strikes, and the possible reasons for this, Lt. Col.

Kennedy waxed eloquent: "War, by its very nature, has ebbs and flows, and we

constantly review the application of airpower to best support the forces on

the ground in theater. We view this as simply part of our contract to the

warfighters. As we do not discuss operational aspects of missions, I'll

decline further comment." But recently, Air Force Chief of Staff T. Michael

Moseley did admit [24] that he had "anecdotal evidence" suggesting "airpower

is the most lethal of the components in wrapping up bad guys." He continued,

"As far as numbers of people killed, as far as wrapping up bad guys and as

far as delivering a kinetic effect, the air component -- which also includes

Marine and Navy air, by the way -- is the most lethal of the components."

According to IBC's figures, during the first three months of 2007, U.S. air

attacks had already killed more than half as many civilians as had died in

all air strikes last year -- some 95-107 deaths; and publicly available

CENTAF statistics indeed do show a surge in close air-support missions in

2007. For example, between March 24 and March 30, 2006, CENTAF reported 366

close air support missions. In 2007, the number for the same dates

skyrocketed to 437 -- an almost 20% jump.

The Secret of Why the Air War Is So Secret

Unfortunately, media reports on the air war are so sparse, with reporting

confined largely to reprinting U.S. military handouts and announcements of

air strikes, that much of the air war in Iraq remains unknown -- although

the very fact of an occupying power regularly conducting air strikes in and

near population centers should have raised a question or two. Echoing Ali

al-Fadhily's comments about the dearth of international observers in Iraq,

Garlasco of Human Rights Watch notes, "Because of the lack of security we've

had no one on the ground for three years now, and so we have no way of

knowing what's going on there." He adds, "It's a huge hole in all the human

rights organizations' reporting."

But human rights organizations and other NGOs are just part of the story.

Since the Bush administration's invasion, the American air war has been

given remarkably short shrift in the media. Back in December 2004, Tom

Engelhardt, writing at Tomdispatch [25], called attention to this glaring

absence. Seymour Hersh's seminal piece on air power, "Up in the Air," [26]

published in the New Yorker in late 2005, briefly ushered in some mainstream

attention to the subject. And articles by Dahr Jamail, an independent

journalist who covered the American occupation of Iraq, before [27] and

after [28] the Hersh piece, are among the smattering [29] of pieces [30]

that have offered glimpses of the air campaign and its impact. To date,

however, the mainstream media has not, to use the words of Lt. Col. Kennedy,

engaged in a "relentless pursuit of the number of cannon rounds" fired -- or

any other aspect of the air war or its consequences for Iraqis.

Les Roberts especially laments just "how profoundly the press has failed us"

when it comes to coverage of the war. "In the first couple of years of the

war," he says, "our survey data suggest that there were more deaths from

bombs dropped by our planes than there were deaths from roadside explosives

and car bombs [detonated by insurgents]." The only group on the ground

systematically collecting violent death data at the time, the NGO

Coordinating Committee for Iraq, he notes, found the same thing. "If you had

been reading the U.S. papers and watching the U.S. television news at the

time," Roberts adds, "you would have gotten the impression that

anti-coalition bombs were more numerous. That was not just wrong, it

probably was wrong by a factor of ten!"

With the military unwilling to tell the truth - or say anything at all, in

most cases-- and unable to provide the stability necessary for NGOs to

operate, it falls to the mainstream media, even at this late stage of the

conflict, to begin ferreting out substantive information on the air war. It

seems, however, that until reporters begin bypassing official U.S. military

pronouncements and locating Iraqi sources, we will remain largely in the

dark with little knowledge of what can only be described as the secret U.S.

air war in Iraq.

Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com.

He has written for the Los Angeles Times [31], the San Francisco Chronicle,

the Nation, the Village Voice, and regularly for Tomdispatch. A shorter

version of this piece appears in this week's Nation Magazine [32].

Copyright 2007 Nick Turse

_______

About author Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com

[33] ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of

the American Empire Project [34] and, most recently, the author of Mission

Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and

Dissenters [35] (Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch

interviews.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson