Word: planes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...lives of American servicemen, a goal no journalist would decry. But complaints are growing about the arbitrary and dilatory way in which the censors are operating. When ABC News wanted to report that the pilot had been rescued from a downed F-14, military censors refused to allow the plane to be identified. Reason: the F-14 carries a two-man crew, and the Iraqis would know to look for the other member. "That sounded perfectly reasonable to us," says Richard Kaplan, coordinator of ABC's coverage in Saudi Arabia. "Then 20 minutes later they have a briefing...
...skies cleared late in the week, the bombing resumed with greater intensity than ever. On Thursday allied planes mounted a record 3,000 sorties (one plane on one flight); in the first 10 days, sorties totaled 20,000, of which more than half were combat missions. In the early days of the war, American briefers gave a misleading impression by lumping all sorties -- including refueling flights and AWACS flights -- together, without disclosing that many were not devoted to "dropping iron," as Air Force lingo puts it. Even so, for sustained intensity the air campaign far outranks any other in history...
Last week it all worked. After the first raids, U.S. and allied planes pounded targets throughout Kuwait and Iraq around the clock, not so much in waves as in a steady stream. Drawing targets from a 600-page daily computerized assignment book, they were concentrating at week's end on missile sites, command and control units, troop complexes and artillery sites. They also hit Baghdad again before dawn Saturday, knocking out the city's electricity and water and destroying the central telecommunications facility. By Sunday they had flown more than 4,000 sorties (one plane flying one mission). About...
...casualties among the allied airmen were phenomenally light: six U.S., two British, one Italian and one Kuwaiti plane downed as of early Sunday; nine American crewmen, four British, two Italians and one Kuwaiti officially listed as missing in action (some surely were killed). Iraqi antiaircraft fire was in some cases heavy, but inaccurate, and few planes rose to challenge the attackers...
Saddam has lost only a handful of his 700-plane air force against a vastly superior allied air fleet. His 545,000-strong ground force, including the powerful Republican Guard, remain firmly entrenched in Kuwait, and Saddam's threat of terrorism against his enemies does not appear diminished...