Gulf War II: Air and Space Power Led the Way

Abstract : The Global War on Terrorism that began the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, seemed almost fated to lead to a second major war between the United States and Iraq. And it is now clear that the Air Force also was destined to play the leading role in creating the strategic conditions for victory in that war, executed by a total of 466,985 US and allied forces in Spring 2003. In the early morning of March 20, 2003 (local Baghdad time), two F-117 Stealth fighters launched out on a daring mission to bomb a specific building thought to be a Saddam Hussein hide-out. Just three weeks later, US Marines pushed into downtown Baghdad and helped a crowd of Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi capital belonged to US forces, and Saddam and his sons were nowhere to be seen. The defeat of Saddam's regime was a dramatic advance in the Global War on Terrorism. It was also a new kind of victory, one that showed how airpower could alter the conditions for joint force operations.