![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Almost 60 percent of Iraq’s total Scud launches occurred within the next 10 days, but they failed to start a war with Israel or fracture the coalition. ![]() Scud attacks against cities in Israel and Saudi Arabia began on Jan. 17, Iraq made several attempts to take some initiative by employing remaining tactical strengths to change the terms of the battle. Horner, the war’s Joint Forces Air Component Commander, the Battle of Khafji was downplayed at the time “because we didn’t really understand what the objectives of the Iraqi army were.” Complete details may never be available, but evidence suggests the Iraqi offensive at Khafji was a calculated bid to draw coalition troops into ground combat while Iraq could still maneuver its mechanized forces in the Kuwait Theater of Operations.Īfter Desert Storm began on Jan. Understanding Iraq’s objectives was the first step in the Air Force effort to gauge the significance of Khafji. Tom Allen, produced findings that, in sum, yield remarkable evidence of airpower’s effectiveness against attacking ground forces.Īt Khafji, Joint airpower demonstrated something new: a heretofore unknown ability to stop moving enemy armored forces at night, on short notice, and without a synchronized ground counterattack. In 1995, the Air Force Studies and Analyses Agency at the Pentagon began a major reconstruction of the battle. Studies of the airpower response to the Khafji offensive began at Air University, located at Maxwell AFB, Ala., shortly after the war. Fogleman–all have recognized Khafji’s significance as a marker of airpower’s increasing ability to meld sensors and advanced weapons under central control to gain the advantage over enemy forces on the ground. However, three former USAF Chiefs of Staff–Gens. Intense interest in the Desert Storm air war, and the ground offensive, overshadowed Khafji at the time and in most histories of Operation Desert Storm. The Iraqi offensive at Khafji began on that January night, almost four weeks prior to the start of the main ground war in late February. The main phase of the Battle of Khafji lasted less than 48 hours, but it marked a turning point in the debate over the ability of airpower to dominate enemy maneuver forces. What the Joint STARS crew saw that night was, in fact, the beginning of Iraq’s only organized offensive during the Persian Gulf War. ![]()
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