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Iraq
U.S. Ups Pressure on IS with first B-52 Bomber Strike
2016-04-22
[AnNahar] The U.S. Air Force for the first time deployed a B-52 bomber against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, the Pentagon said Wednesday as it ramps up a 20-month campaign to smash the jihadists.

The bombing mission, in which a hulking B-52 destroyed a weapons storage facility south of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, comes the same week that Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Baghdad and announced extra U.S. troops, cash and equipment for the anti-IS campaign in Iraq.

In other signs of an increasing tempo, U.S. commandos working with Kurdish troops conducted a raid targeting a senior IS group figure and the Pentagon said it has changed how air strikes risking civilian deaths are approved.

Under the new rules, authority now comes from the commanding three-star U.S. general in Baghdad, instead of going through a four-star at the U.S. Central Command's headquarters in Florida.

Baghdad-based military front man Colonel Steve Warren insisted the changes do not lessen oversight standards in determining when civilian losses are an acceptable risk.

"This does not translate to more civilian casualties, this translates to a more rapid execution of strikes," Warren said.

The Pentagon has acknowledged 26 civilian deaths due to U.S.-led coalition strikes since the campaign began in August 2014 in Iraq, and credits the use of guided missiles in keeping the number relatively low -- though independent observers say the figure is far higher.

Monday's strike by a B-52 Stratofortress blew up an IS weapons storage facility in the town of Qayyarah, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Mosul.

The enormous planes, originally designed in the 1950s, became a symbol of U.S. might during the Cold War and the aircraft was used to conduct carpet bombing in Vietnam.

Warren said the B-52s are only being armed with guided bombs.

"There are memories in the collective unconscious of B-52s, decades ago, doing... arguably indiscriminate bombing," Warren said.

"Those days are long gone. The B-52 is a precision-strike weapons platform and it will conduct the same type of precision strikes that we have seen for the last 20 months."

Several B-52s arrived in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
 earlier this month to replace a contingent of newer B-1 bombers that had been working in Iraq and Syria for about a year.

Warren also announced that U.S. commandos in northern Iraq had targeted Suleiman Abd Shabib al-Jabouri, "one of ISIS's military emirs and an ISIS war council member."

The Kurdish regional security council said Jabouri was killed in the raid, conducted jointly with Kurdish fighters.
Posted by:trailing wife

#20  Just re-read Ambrose's The Wild Blue.
B-24 pilot didn't sound easy. Did he get Liberator Arm?
Posted by: swksvolFF   2016-04-22 22:22  

#19  Had an uncle who flew B24s in the Pacific. A brother in C130 ditto, and a fraternity brother in KC135, same also again.
Somebody must have had a better idea. Maybe we ought to look at which senator is having the thing built in his state.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey   2016-04-22 22:07  

#18  Americanized bees.
Posted by: Beau   2016-04-22 21:27  

#17  And this, about our beloved Viper.

http://www.gao.gov/assets/120/116765.pdf

I will stop till next time :)
Posted by: Shipman   2016-04-22 17:13  

#16  So there’s been a bunch of commotion this week because two F-22 Raptor pilots say they want to transfer to flying different jets. Now, the pilots will go on 60 Minutes this Sunday to discuss the matter. Naturally, everyone’s freaking out since the pilots are apparently going to blow the lid off the jets’ safety issues that we, and everyone else, have written about over the last year.

As you know, the Raptors where cleared to return to flight in September 2011 following a lengthy grounding so that service officials could figure out what was causing F-22 pilots to experience hypoxia-like symptoms in flight (the grounding came several months after an Alaska-based F-22 crashed in November 2010 when its pilot lost situational awareness while trying to activate his plane’s emergency oxygen system). The Air Force still hasn’t figured out what’s messing with the F-22’s pilots and in fact, Raptor jocks have reported 11 instances of hypoxia-like symptoms since the grounding was lifted.

This has apparently prompted at least two pilots to lose faith in the jet as a safe flying platform, with one, Maj. Jeremy Gordon saying he’s “not comfortable flying the F-22 right now.”

The other pilot, Capt. Josh Wilson described an instance last year where he sensed the onset of hypoxia and reached for the plane’s emergency oxygen system — just like the pilot involved in the Alaska crash — but couldn’t remember how to find the system’s poorly-designed activation ring.

From the Newport News Daily Press:


It was … kind of a surreal experience,” he says, because it took great concentration to do simple tasks. He attempted to pull an emergency oxygen ring and couldn’t find it in the cockpit.

Capt. Jeff Haney was headed back to base in his F-22 Raptor fighter jet, ripping through the frigid Alaskan night beyond the speed of sound at more than 1,000 mph, when things started going terribly wrong.

Packed tight in cold-weather gear to protect him from the bitter temperatures, the Air Force pilot pulled back on the control stick at about 38,400 feet to gain altitude. Then Haney saw his plane was beginning to fail him.

A caution light glowed green through his night vision goggles, alerting him that a section of the aircraft was overheating. Almost instantly, the F-22's onboard computers detected an air leak in the engine bay and began automatic shutdown of various systems — including the main oxygen supply.



Gasping for air, Haney set the throttles to idle and began lowering the plane to the snow-covered valley below. About 35 seconds later, Haney's plane began to roll upside down. He couldn't recover. There amid the Talkeetna Mountains north of Anchorage, Haney, 31, crashed and died.







When the U.S. sought to assure Asian allies that it would defend them against potential aggression by North Korea this spring, the Pentagon deployed its top-of-the-line jet fighter, the F-22 Raptor.

But only two of the jets were sent screaming through the skies south of Seoul.

That token show of American force was a stark reminder that the U.S. may have few F-22s to spare. Alarmed by soaring costs, the Defense Department shut down production last year after spending $67.3 billion on just 188 planes — leaving the Air Force to rely mainly on its fleet of 30-year-old conventional fighters.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-advanced-fighter-woes-20130616-dto-htmlstory.html


Sorry about the lack of easy links, but I am working from an iPad, which although expensive but not rare, lacks several important features for us keyboard warriors :)







Posted by: Shipman   2016-04-22 16:58  

#15  Re #14: And given time Hell will Freeze Over.

And in a salute to Earth Day: 1 B-52; doing the job of an entire CV full of Lawn Darts.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2016-04-22 15:55  

#14  USN, be patient. The F-35 will be able to do that, and more. Eventually. Maybe in 2026, maybe later.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia    2016-04-22 14:26  

#13  the L-M F-35

I'm guessing the L-M stands for Low Mileage.
Posted by: SteveS   2016-04-22 14:26  

#12  Boeing B-52; doing the job the L-M F-35 can't.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2016-04-22 14:20  

#11   authority now comes from the commanding three-star U.S. general in Baghdad, instead of going through a four-star at the U.S. Central Command's headquarters in Florida.

However, air strikes still require the approval of 27 WH attorneys including Tom Hayden and Valerie Jarrett.
Posted by: Frozen Al   2016-04-22 13:27  

#10  I suspect that the first strike was on a mostly empty depot with no one in it.

That'd be the Obama way.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2016-04-22 12:52  

#9  Did they drop leaflets first, again?
Posted by: Procopius2k   2016-04-22 12:45  

#8  authority now comes from the commanding three-star U.S. general in Baghdad, instead of going through a four-star at the U.S. Central Command's headquarters in Florida.

Been that way for years. Other than theater related intelligence inputs out of SOCCENT or the CENTCOM J2, I'd be surprised if the CENTCOM Combatant Commander even maintains daily situation al awareness of the fight. It's a Klington/JSOC economy of force, 'drone zapp' fight. Again, it has been for years. That's the way Champ
wants it.
Posted by: Besoeker   2016-04-22 11:18  

#7  I suspect that the first strike was on a mostly empty depot with no one in it.

Mostly for show.
Posted by: DarthVader   2016-04-22 11:13  

#6  It's only taken 0bean almost eight years of being the president to figure out what he should have known from the get-go. Even then, I suspect this is half for show.
Posted by: gorb   2016-04-22 10:54  

#5  The bombing mission, in which a hulking B-52 destroyed a weapons storage facility south of djinn-infested Mosul

I suppose following the subtle logistics chain nuances to the common point-of-origin rather than the delivery destination(s) are a little too complex.

authority now comes from the commanding three-star U.S. general in Baghdad, instead of going through a four-star at the U.S. Central Command's headquarters in Florida.

Maybe a local focus will cut through CENTCOM's 'big picture' brain-fog.
Posted by: Skidmark   2016-04-22 10:08  

#4  Drink UP!
Posted by: Frank G   2016-04-22 09:33  

#3  Until the first SA-17 launches.
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2016-04-22 07:38  

#2  If I could only count the times this concept has been suggested right here.
Posted by: Besoeker   2016-04-22 06:12  

#1  Yup, in our collective unconscious, we knowz the magic woids.
Posted by: Shipman   2016-04-22 06:06  

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