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Washington Post
March 29, 2011
Pg. 1
3. U.S. Deploys Low-
Flying Attack Planes
By Greg Jaffe and Karen
DeYoung
The U.S. military
dramatically stepped up its
assault on Libyan government
ground forces over the
weekend, launching its first
missions with AC-130 flying
gunships and A-10 attack
aircraft designed to strike
enemy ground troops and
supply convoys.
The use of the aircraft,
during days of heavy fighting
in which the momentum
seemed to swing in favor
of the rebels, demonstrated
how allied military forces have
been drawn deeper into the
chaotic fight in Libya. A
mission that initially seemed
to revolve around establishing
a no-fly zone has become
focused on halting advances by
government ground forces in
and around key coastal cities.
The AC-130s, which fly
low and slow over the
battlefield and are typically
more vulnerable to enemy fire
than fast-moving fighter jets,
were deployed only after a week
of sustained coalition attacks on
Libyan government air defenses
and radar sites. These aircraft,
armed with heavy machine
guns and cannons that rake the
ground, allow strikes on dugin
Libyan ground forces and
convoys in closer proximity to
civilians.
The planes are being
used to step up pressure on
Libyan ground troops, who
have retreated from the rebel’s
advance and fortified around
several cities east of Tripoli, the
capital. “Our strategy continues
to be to pressure them where
we think it’s going to give
us the best effect,” said Vice
Adm. William Gortney, director
of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff,
referring to the use of the new
aircraft. “The number of the
strike sorties that you saw, I
think, is a direct result of that.”
Gortney emphasized that
the military was not using
the planes to facilitate a rebel
advance. The Washington Post
learned of their deployment last
week but withheld reporting
the information until their first
missions at the request of U.S.
military officials.
Military officials consider
AC-130s and A-10s well
suited to attacks in builtup
areas, although their use
has led to civilian deaths.
Unlike fighter jets and bombers,
which typically carry 500-
or 1,000-pound bombs, the
AC-130s and A-10s deliver
more discriminate but still
devastating machine-gun fire.
“They offer weapons that you
can meter against a much
page 8
smaller area and not risk as
much collateral damage,” said
retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David
A. Deptula, who played a key
role in overseeing the initial
U.S. attack on Afghanistan in
2002.
AC-130s were used to
great effect during the two
U.S. offensives in Fallujah,
a stronghold of the insurgent
group al-Qaeda in Iraq in the
early days of the Iraq war.
In Afghanistan, the military
considers them particularly
effective against entrenched
militants, and commanders
have frequently complained that
they are in too short supply.
The gunships, developed from a
Hercules C-130 transport plane
for use in Vietnam, put pilots
at greater risk than fighter jets,
but they have been used in
virtually every U.S. military
combat operation since then.
In Libya, “we are
determined to step up the
mission, to attack his tanks and
[troop] columns every day until
he withdraws,” a French official
said of Libyan leader Moammar
Gaddafi and the forces loyal to
him.
The AC-130s, which are
flying from a base in Italy,
were requested by Gen. Carter
Ham, the senior U.S. general
overseeing the operation, and
are likely to continue flying
over Libya in the coming
days as allied forces attempt
to increase the pressure on
Gaddafi’s ground forces.
“The longer it lasts,
the more danger of civilian
casualties,” said a Western
diplomat whose country is
involved in the attacks. He
warned that one errant missile
strike against a hospital or a
house full of children could
have a deeply polarizing effect
on the fragile alliance of NATO
and Arab nations.
The tougher and more
risky mission to stop
Gaddafi’s ground troops from
attacking key cities has
quickly overshadowed the less
challenging task of stopping the
Libyan dictator from launching
his aircraft to attack rebels.
The ground attack mission also
opened up some rifts among
coalition partners in NATO
and Arab nations, which were
reluctant to support attacks that
could cause civilian casualties.
And it has led some U.S.
lawmakers to accuse the Obama
administration of inserting the
U.S. military in the middle
of a complex ground fight
between rebels and loyalist
forces without a clear exit
strategy.
On Monday, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said strikes on Gaddafi’s forces
would amount to taking sides in
what he called a civil war. He
said such attacks would breach
a U.N. mandate authorizing
intervention in Libya that
was initially envisaged as
establishing a no-fly zone only
to protect civilians.
In discussions that began
in late February, NATO
planners focused primarily
on providing humanitarian
support, enforcing an arms
embargo and establishing the
no-fly zone to prevent Gaddafi
from using his aircraft to attack
his people, according to a senior
NATO diplomat.
Separately, the United
States, Britain and France
made preparations for stopping
a ground assault by Libyan
forces. There was little support
within President Obama’s
national security team for a
mission that revolved solely
around a no-fly zone seen
as likely to do too little
to protect civilians against
Gaddafi’s forces.
Some administration
officials, with memories of
enforcing no-fly zones over
Bosnia while civilians were
being exterminated on the
ground, said the United States
should not participate in such
a limited operation. At the
Pentagon, there was concern
about plunging U.S. forces
into a conflict without a clear
goal, and there was worry
that chaos would ensue if
Gaddafi fell too quickly and
the loosely organized, tribally
divided rebels tried to govern
the country.
But by March 12, the Arab
League had formally backed
the imposition of a no-fly
zone, after a similar move by
the Gulf Cooperation Council,
which consists of several of
the United States’ closest Arab
allies.
Until the week of March
13, the rebels seemed to be
making progress. Then Gaddafi
unleashed his military, taking
towns that the opposition had
won and heading toward the de
facto rebel capital, Benghazi.
Pushed by Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton
and U.N. Ambassador Susan E.
Rice, the administration took
control of a British-French draft
resolution for a no-fly zone
and began making the case
to the rest of the Security
Council that stronger action was
needed. The resolution passed
March 17, authorizing the use
of “all necessary measures” to
protect civilians and civilian
areas under threat.
“In an ideal world, we
would sit down with a blank
sheet of paper and say, ‘Let’s
get rid of Gaddafi.’ That’s
not the way it unfolded,” said
the Western diplomat whose
country is involved in the Libya
mission.
_________________
\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson
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