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On April 6, 2003, CENTAF leadership declared air supremacy over all of Iraq and on April 16, 2003, the first humanitarian relief flight landed at Bashur airfield.Ĭoalition Air Forces flew nearly 1,000 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sorties during the initial weeks of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, collecting 42,000 battlefield images and more than 3,000 hours of full motion video.
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The mission took place because Turkey refused to allow the Air Force to use its air bases to deliver troops and supplies into northern Iraq, necessitating the capture of the airfield. That marked the first time that the C-17 had been used in a combat airdrop. Additionally, on March 26, 2003, C-130 and C-17 aircraft dropped nearly 1,000 paratroopers of the 173d Airborne Brigade onto Bashur airfield near Erbil in Northern Iraq. Similar to Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, during the first six weeks of operations 68 percent of weapons employed were precision guided munitions. Combat operations began the next day and the USAF participated in air strikes on key targets in and around Baghdad, launching more than 1,700 coalition air sorties and missile launches against Iraq. Unfortunately, the attack was not successful. On the evening March 19, 2003, one day prior to the onset of combat operations, Air Force F-117 stealth fighters struck the Dora Farms complex southwest of Baghdad based on intelligence that Saddam Hussein was in the area. The leaflets urged non-interference and stressed coalition support for the Iraqi people. The first air operation of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was a psychological operation leaflet drop on 9 March 2003. During the same period, however, the Air Force lost just one A-10 to enemy fire and two Air Mobility Command (AMC) aircraft suffered SAM strikes out of 236 attempts. Indeed, during the initial invasion of Iraq, the Air Force noted more than 1,000 anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) firings, and more than 1,600 surface to air missile (SAM) launches. The primary political goal of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was to create "a stable Iraq, with its territorial integrity intact and a broad based government that renounces WMD development and use, and no longer supports terrorism or threatens its neighbors." Based on that primary objective, the combined force commander' s top three objectives were to "defeat or compel capitulation of Iraqi forces, neutralize regime leadership, and neutralize Iraqi theater ballistic missile/WMD delivery systems." Although Operations NORTHERN WATCH and SOUTHERN WATCH had significantly degraded the Iraqi air defense system and the Iraqi Air Force had essentially ceased to exist, planners remained concerned with Iraqi Air Defenses. Michael Moseley, who had overseen operations in Afghanistan. The Air Force command and control element for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was the Combined Force Air Component Commander (CFACC), Lt. Since the end of the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, the United States Air Force had maintained a continuous presence in the Middle East, enforcing no-fly zones in the northern and southern portions of Iraq, termed Operation NORTHERN WATCH, based out of Turkey, and Operation SOUTHERN WATCH, based out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Citing intelligence information that Iraq had stockpiled and continued to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) such as poison gas, biological agents, and nuclear weapons, as well as harboring and supporting members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, the United States and Great Britain led a coalition to topple Hussein's regime in March 2003. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the overthrow of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the United States Government turned its attention to Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein.