More than 2000 precision bombs used against Iraq

US aircraft have dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the start of the war, a feat made possible partly because the “smart” bombs are now produced for a relatively cheap $19,000 each.

The targets have ranged from military buildings and palaces inside Baghdad - including a bunker believed to hold Iraqi President Saddam Hussein – to the key Republican Guard troops now defending the capital.

Sandstorms like those raging in Iraq today do not stop prevent satellite-guided bombs from finding their targets, but the combat aircraft carrying such bombs from two aircraft carriers did have to be called back because of the bad weather.

In contrast, the clouds of smoke from oil fires deliberately set by the Iraqi regime “are more a hazard to the people living in Baghdad than an impediment to our operations,” Air Force Maj Gen Victor Renuart said today.

The bombing campaign, the most intensive use of precision bombs in history, appears to have had the desired effect of targeting specific military sites without killing large numbers of Iraqi innocents.

Yet as of yesterday, almost nothing was known about the actual damage the bombs have caused, because the Pentagon had yet to reveal any of its assessments, beyond showing a few photos of bombs hitting individual targets like airfields or buildings.

“We judge effectiveness not just by whether there’s a hole in the roof of a building, but whether or not the function (in that building) ... ceases to be effective,” Maj Gen Stanley McChrystal said. “We can achieve much ‘shock and awe’ by hitting just critical points.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stressed that the US precision bombs are not blanketing Baghdad with destruction, but instead are falling only on select military and command targets. The city, Rumsfeld said, is “not ablaze”.

Indeed, there have been few reports of the errant bombs that killed several groups of civilians during the war in Afghanistan, said Daniel Goure, a military analyst in Washington.

Speaking of injuries that have occurred, Renuart said today: “It is a tragedy to see the children who are injured and we continue to try to minimise that. But I can’t tell you that nothing bad will happen.”