To: Defrocked who wrote (43813 ) 5/28/1999 12:50:00 PM From: John Pitera Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Another Nail in the Coffin of a Failed Presidency-- But one Clinton military blunder is worth noting. More than half the missions flown have returned without attacking, or even finding, their targets, and it is President Clinton's fault. His decisions inadvertently have provided Serbian forces with sanctuary in the fog and rain common in the region, especially at night. So instead of bombing difficult targets that could help the Kosovars, much of the effort, as in Vietnam, goes against targets like bridges that are easy to hit but of no military effect."We always knew when the B-52s and alpha strikes were coming, because the air-raid sirens went off long before we heard the bombs, and we always knew when the A-6s and F-111s attacked because we heard the bombs first and the sirens afterwards." The Navy A-6 Intruders and the Air Force F-111s were the core of the all-weather precision strike capability of U.S. air power.updated with the latest technology, they both had similar capabilities that are indispensable for bombing at night and in bad weather: long range, large payload, a pilot and a full-time bombardier sitting side-by-side, powerful ground-mapping radars, terrain-following systems permitting them to fly nap-of-the-earth at 500 knots, 200 feet altitude, solely on instruments and immune from surface-to-air missiles; laser gyroscope and Global Positioning System navigation accurate to a few feet; imaging infrared and laser targeting systems; Doppler moving target detectors to kill tanks moving under clouds and darkness; radar beacon systems to allow precision bombing from beacons held by inserted reconnaissance teams. So where are these aircraft? At the bottom of the sea. The Clinton administration has scrapped them all. Some of the A-6s went straight from being rebuilt with new carbon wings and new avionics to become an artificial reef off Florida. Even worse than the loss of these airplanes is the loss of the invaluable community of combat-experienced professionals who flew them. At the sad retirement ceremony for the last A-6 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia in March 1997, 1,700 pilots and bombardiers were present. Nearly all had flown Intruders in combat in Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya or Iraq, and had studied and practiced all-weather attacks their whole careers. It was doubtless the greatest assemblage of bombing experience, wisdom and talent ever in one hanger. Many had left the Navy in disgust after the Tailhook witch hunt, and those who remained in the Navy were dispersed to other jobs. The F-111 community was similarly dispersed.How could such things come to pass? In the Clinton effort to re-engineer the military into a kinder, gentler, "gender" conscious peacekeeping force, aggressive-sounding things like deep-strike attack aircraft were not in favor. And since Truman's day there have always been big-bomber zealots in the Air Force arguing that carrier strike aircraft were not needed. Thus did the administration with its veteran-free cabinet <quietly carry out a significant unilateral disarmament.
