It was yet another gauntlet to commercial aviation, already reeling from 9/11 and the SARS epidemic earlier in the year. In March, coalition forces began launching air strikes aimed at toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

On March 19th, we wrote: The United States has led off the first actions in its war with Iraq with a "surgical strike" designed to disable a key Iraqi military target.

In a short address that started at 2215 Wednesday night, President George W. Bush indicated that the first attack had begun. This initial effort was a combination of F-117 actions combined with Tomahawk cruise missiles against a specific target, rumored to be a bunker, in Baghdad, Iraq.

Sirens, signaling the start of the first air engagement of the war, went off in Baghdad about 0530 Thursday (local time), only 90 minutes after the President's deadline expired for the self-imposed exile of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

That raid missed Saddam (some say just barely). But American and British warplanes pounded Iraqi positions without mercy, employing the highest-ever ratio of "smart munitions" in a campaign dubbed "Shock and Awe." The campaign itself was laid out in some detail beforehand, as we reported March 10th:

If the Bush administration gets its way, the United States will once again be at war with Iraq before the end of the month. The air campaign in this Second Gulf War will be much different than the 43-day long air campaign in 1991. It will be much more forceful, much more precise and will coincide with the launching of ground operations. The combined effect on Iraq's political and military leadership: "Shock and awe"

More Than A Name

The concept of "shock and awe" is actually military doctrine at the Pentagon. The man who wrote it is Dr. Harland Ullman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington (DC).

"The notion here is that we want to affect, influence and control both the will and perception of the Iraqi political and military leadership to get them to do what we want them to do" - which is to surrender en masse and give up dictator Saddam Hussein. "The way to do that is to just impose on the Iraqi political and military leadership a condition of complete hopelessness, where they are so surrounded, so outgunned, so outnumbered that their only option is to quit. We now have the technology and the intellectual smarts to do that."

Alas, the effect of "Shock and Awe" wasn't long-lasting. Insurgents managed to shoot down several helicopters and even wound a civilian cargo flight after "major hostilities" were declared over on May 1st. President Bush himself made a dramatic trip to a US aircraft carrier on that day, declaring "mission accomplished" in Iraq. The main fear among skyjockeys in the Gulf now is of shoulder-fired SAMs. The air war continues on an as-needed basis.

FMI: ANN Special Report: "Shock and Awe"; Air Assets Pound Iraq; Coalition Air Forces Make Ground Gains Possible; November 2nd Chinook Crash Claims Another Life