Word: targets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bombs had fallen differently, the U.S. might have eliminated one of its principal adversaries in that long battle. Despite the tonnage dropped on the barracks where Gaddafi lives, Administration officials insisted they were not trying to kill him. "He was not a direct target," said Secretary of State George Shultz. Pentagon Spokesman Robert Sims elaborated: "The nerve center was the target, not the individual." Privately, though, Reagan's aides left no doubt that, to put it mildly, they would not have been unhappy if Gaddafi just happened to die in the raid. The distinction appeared to be largely legalistic...
...last week's mission, the F-111s used 2,000-lb. bombs of the Paveway II ! class. The bomb's nose contains a laser-sensing device, a computer and small movable fins for stabilization and control. The sensor homes in on the reflection of the laser off the target; the computer moves the fins to make minute midcourse corrections. Each F-111 emits a laser at a different frequency, which only its bombs are programmed to detect...
...Libya last week, U.S. journalists found themselves in an unaccustomed position: instead of trailing behind a U.S. strike force, they were at the center of its target; instead of using the technical wizardry of minicams and satellite feeds to report a battle that seemed to have been orchestrated for the 7 o'clock news, they were forced to use an older tool, the telephone, reviving images of Edward R. Murrow during World War II's London blitz. They were right in the middle of a city that was being attacked by their own military and yet could not immediately confirm...
Next on the hit list was the military section of the Tripoli International Airport, base of Libya's fleet of nine Il-76s, which have been used in terrorist operations for supply and transport. A third target was the Benghazi army barracks, which Gaddafi uses as an alternative command post. Then came barracks at the naval port of Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, a commando training facility. Finally, security officials recommended a strike at the Benina airfield, where Libya's MiG-23 interceptors are based, as a precaution against counterattack...
Aircraft carrying such radar-jamming devices, as well as HARM missiles to take out radar sites, were the first to reach the target cities, approaching at 6:54 p.m. Precisely at 7 p.m., the squadron of A-6 fighters roared over Benghazi from the Gulf of Sidra and began bombing the airfield. In Tripoli, part of the F-111 squadron had circled around inland and approached from the south. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. "We were able to see the hits," recalled one Navy airman, who had spent many hours studying...