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Description
Northern Watch was a combined US., UK, and Turkish operation to enforce a no-fly zone in Iraq above the 36th parallel. Begun on January 1, 1997, it involved forty-five coalition aircraft and was expected to last for about six months. However, repeated extensions saw the operation continue for more than six years, until the final combat air patrol on March 17, 2003. No coalition aircraft were lost to enemy fire. Operation Northern Watch had succeeded Operation Provide Comfort, which had started in April 1991.
The previous day's mission had been a tremendous success. "Fangs," the 71st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron (EFS) weapons officer, had been the mission commander on a strike that had released much of our frustrations accumulated over the past months.
For over three years, U.S.-led coalition forces had been playing a game of cat and mouse with the Iraqi air defenses. We would fly into the UN-sanctioned No-Fly Zones in northern and southern Iraq to patrol the skies and to keep out the Iraqi air force. The Iraqis would comply by keeping their aircraft well clear or by grounding their aircraft entirely during our four to five hour missions. They would also routinely take pot shots at us with their anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), and on occasion with their surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The last few weeks had the Iraqis had become particularly zealous in the Northern Zone, with AAA being fired daily, and the usually rare SAMs streaking into the air with alarming regularity.
The AAA was mostly medium caliber with only sporadic large caliber fire being seen. I was told that if you saw the muzzle flashes every second or so, it was medium caliber weaponry that couldn't hit us at the high altitudes where the F-15s loitered. The large caliber weapons (100mm and up) flashed only every eight seconds or so, but could reach up and touch you. The U.S. and the UK had been enforcing the No-Fly Zone seemingly forever, flying thousands of sorties without any aircraft ever receiving even a scratch from hostile fire. No one wanted to be the guy shot down by the "golden B-B."
I never saw the AAA being fired, although it was reported on every one of my missions over Iraq. I preferred to spend my time scanning the horizon looking for the one thing I thought might actually hit an aircraft--a SAM. It also conveniently allowed... |
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