When US navy warplanes roar off the flight deck of this aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, their official mission is to patrol the no-flight zone in southern Iraq.
But they also have an unadvertised task: practicing bombing runs against Iraqi targets.
Navy pilots are conducting mock strikes against airfields, towers and other military sites in Iraq, acquainting themselves with targets they may be called on to strike as the Bush administration prepares for a possible military campaign to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"It gives us the opportunity to train in the same environment that we may possibly go to war in," Captain Kevin Albright, the commander of the air wing on the Abraham Lincoln, said of the navy patrols over southern Iraq. "We are looking at target sets and practicing."
The no-flight zones in southern and northern Iraq were established after the 1991 Persian Gulf war to prevent Iraq from carrying out airstrikes against Shiites in southern Iraq and Kurdish forces in the north of the country. The zones have been patrolled by the US air force and navy and by British warplanes.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, there was some debate within the US military whether the patrols were worth the wear and tear on equipment and the risk to allied pilots, who have repeatedly been fired at by Iraqi antiaircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles and who have responded by bombing Iraqi air defenses.
But with Washington and Baghdad on a collision course, that debate is long forgotten. The allied patrols, in fact, have grown into a low-grade war. According to Pentagon officials, Iraq has fired at allied patrols more than 130 times since mid-September. The Iraqi goal, said Rear Admiral John Kelly, the commander of the Abraham Lincoln Battle Group, "is to shoot down a coalition aircraft."
The patrols are something of a double-edged sword. While they give the American pilots a chance to rehearse military attacks against the Iraqis, they also give the Iraqi air defense forces a chance to practice against allied patrols. The allies vary their formations, tactics and flight times to keep the Iraqis off guard.
The navy's general assessment is that it learns more from the patrols than the Iraqis do. Navy pilots who attacked Iraq during the gulf war were often flying over unfamiliar terrain using bombing plans that were rushed to them at the last minute from commanders based in Saudi Arabia.
Now, the navy pilots gain combat experience when they police the no-flight zone. They have the chance to practice bombing tactics when the Iraqis refrain from firing at the patrols.
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