Pre-Iraq Bombings in 2002: The Times Online

Matthew Good today published an interesting entry regarding illegal military action by the American military against Iraq in 2002.

"The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 'carefully selected targets' before the war officially started.

The nine months of allied raids 'laid the foundations' for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.

If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable to allegations that they had acted illegally."

The original Times publication can be found here.

My response to the story, as published on the mblog:

I find this surprising. At first glance, I find it entirely plausible that a secret war could have been waged nine months before George W. and Tony Blair waged the "official invasion" of Iraq.

But it doesn't make sense. In this world where we are connected internationally by the Internet, and have access to newscasts from literally hundreds of countries, we would have surely heard that strategic targets were being bombed from the air by American or British forces.

Al-Jezeera would have been all over the news like flies to excrement.

Though it is widely known that the American propaganda machine can distort facts, and make the citizens of their country believe that their actions of war are justified, I can't believe that they could have covered up something this large. Somebody would have exposed the news.

If what the American General said was true, that nearly 400 targets were bombed in 9 months, would mean that approximately 2 strategic targets would have had to been struck per day. This could not be dismissed as "random acts of terrorism"; this is far larger. Terrorists hit civilian targets, to strike fear and promote unrest in the country. Precise bombings of strategic targets are, conversely, evidence of military operations.

I don't think the full story has yet been told.
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