The Unofficial War: U.S., Britain Led Massive Secret Bombing Campaign Before Iraq War Was Declared

A U.S. general who commanded the U.S. allied air forces in Iraq has confirmed that the U.S. and Britain conducted a massive secret bombing campaign before the U.S. actually declared war on Iraq...Starting in late May to June of 2002 a flurry of activity began both in the United States and in the Middle East. In what appears to be an admission of covert activity, chief allied air force commander Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley divulged in a little-noticed quote in the New York Times that US/British aircraft flew 21,736 sorties between June 2002 and March 2003.

[Previously posted in a comment by ericb at 12:56 PM PST on June 27; more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 28, 2005 - 33 comments

Man says he was paid $150 for each chip laid The airstrikes on residential areas in Iraq are designed to lower support for militants by civilians, and create factional in-fighting. This raises two questions for me. Who are these 'scouts', to be trusted to identify legitimate targets? No monetary, revenge, tribal motivation? What are the legal implications of 'collateral damage'. Are innocent victims eligible for compensation? Any lawyers out there? If moral questions are not allowed under the patriot act, what about legal ones?
posted by dreeed on Sep 14, 2004 - 8 comments

30,000 bombs were dropped on Iraq during the war. This is the story of just one. (RealVideo, 1h14m) While filming at a cross-roads in northern Iraq on April 6, a US Navy jet launched a bomb into a crowd of US and Kurdish soldiers who a BBC team were accompanying. In the seconds that followed, BBC cameraman Fred Scott began to film the disaster as it unfolded, footage which was heavily censored when shown on US news.
posted by Mwongozi on Nov 10, 2003 - 13 comments

Robert Fisk in the Independent Today's front page of the UK broadsheet comprises solely of a text-only report of yesterday's bombing of a Baghdad marketplace, beginning: "It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still-smouldering car..." This is how war reporting should be.
posted by garyh on Mar 27, 2003 - 110 comments

When was the last time we bombed Iraq? 1991? 1992? How about 4 days ago. And again six days before that to name just a few. The US Bombing Watch page keeps detailed tabs on all bombing attacks by allied forces since March 9, 2000, but the bombing has continued since the end of the Gulf War [via rc3.org].
posted by mathowie on Sep 19, 2002 - 81 comments

Interesting claim - the military's investigators say that the Red Cross buildings which were bombed on October 25th were not marked and that the military had not been given their coordinates as claimed. Has anyone found more information about this?
posted by adamsc on Dec 22, 2001 - 1 comment