Pilots pound Republican Guard positions

US warplanes launching from the Gulf are pounding Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad to soften up the defensive line around the Iraqi capital in preparation for a US-led assault by ground troops, senior Navy officers said.

Navy strike planes launched from the USS Kitty Hawk today on the latest bombing missions in support of Army and Marine forces that are consolidating positions south of Baghdad. The two other US carriers in the Gulf, the USS Constellation and the USS Abraham Lincoln, are conducting similar operations. Scores more flights were scheduled for Saturday and into Sunday morning.

The bulk of close to 100 bombing missions a day from each carrier have been at night and have pounded artillery, command posts and vehicle convoys of the elite Republican Guard’s Medina division and other targets. Rear Adm. Barry Costello, the commander of the Constellation battle group, told reporters this morning that planes from his ship hit 40 targets in the past 24 hours.

They included Republican Guard headquarters near Kut and artillery and personnel carriers in the same region, in support of Marines in the area. Other targets included buildings, vehicles and fuel trucks north of Hillah in support of the Army’s V Corps and artillery and missile sights south of Baghdad, he said.

“These are all close air support missions in order to prep the battlefield for the advance of our ground troops,” Costello said.

Kitty Hawk-based planes dropped 46 bombs on missions into the early hours of Saturday, including six 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) target penetrator, or “bunker buster” satellite-guided bombs, eight JSOW satellite-guided bombs, 26 500-pound (225-kilo) laser-guided bombs and six 500-pound unguided bombs.

Kitty Hawk-based planes hit a Baath Party headquarters, surface-to-surface missile canisters, a military compound, other buildings, tanks and an early warning radar site, officials said. All of the targets were between Karbala and Baghdad.

The Kitty Hawk was resupplied with hundreds of new bombs overnight from the ammunition ship USS Flint, said Capt. Thomas A Parker, the carrier’s commander.