You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Pentagon: Most U.S. Bombs Dropped on Iraqi Radar Stations Last Week Missed Their Mark

HeadlineFeb 22, 2001

Most of the bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes on Iraqi radar stations during last week’s airstrikes missed their mark, said Pentagon officials, with most of the misses blamed on a new and expensive Navy guided bomb. A Navy official said about 25 of the guided bombs, which were first used in combat two years ago, were dropped in the attack, and the majority fell “tens of yards” from their targets. Another official said he had been told the bombs missed by an average of more than 100 yards. Pentagon officials’ assessment of Friday’s airstrikes against the Iraqi anti-aircraft system, which involved U.S. and British warplanes, was initially glowing. But the disclosure of the guided weapons failure rate stunned defense officials yesterday and led them to scale back their assessment of the damage done in the attack.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top