'Smarter' bombs still hit civilians

The air campaign to free Kosovo of Serbian control in 1998 underscores the point, according to Fred Kaplan, author of "The Wizards of Armageddon." "Ton for ton, the bombing killed civilians at the same rate as the [Rolling Thunder] air campaign over Vietnam," Mr. Kaplan wrote. One reason was that the improved accuracy of "smart" bombs "emboldened commanders to aim more bombs at targets that required it," he says – leading to more frequent misses.

William Arkin, an air war expert and military commentator who visited Iraq after the Gulf War as part of a Harvard University study team sent to assess battle damage, has seen the Iraqi hospital records that confirm the Amiriyah casualty count. The bombing was the "single largest incident of collateral damage that has ever occurred in modern warfare," he says, and it impacted both sides in the war.

"All of a sudden, after six weeks of there being bloodless conflict, there was blood," Mr. Arkin says. Orders went out that subsequent downtown targets would require approval from Washington." It had as big an impact on [then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Colin Powell's psychology, as it did on the Iraqi people's psychology."

But Arkin doesn't see the Amiriyah bombing as a warning of the risks of air warfare. Rather, he sees it as an example of how efficient smart bomb targeting had become, even then.

"More than 10 percent of all civilians who died in the air war, died in that single incident," says Arkin, who notes that nearly 50,000 allied sorties flown only produced a half dozen cases of numerous civilian dead in Baghdad. But he doesn't expect there to be a greater number of casualties in another Gulf war.

That's because Iraq has the largest conventional army in the Mideast, with a vast array of installations and bases. Targeting will be simpler than in previous conflicts. This "new era of warfare" translates into minimizing casualties, Arkin says – a feat the military can pull off.

Civilian casualties in Iraq may instead depend on the length of the war, US and Iraqi strategies in the cities, and Iraq's possible use of chemical weapons.

US planners are putting their faith in better bombs. Laser-guided munitions that can cost $250,000 each have given way to the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, which is a $20,000 technical kit that can turn many types of bombs into "smart" ones that navigate by satellite. In Afghanistan, the mix was about half and half. Traditional laser-guided bombs were often used on mobile, short notice targets called in – and sometimes "painted" with a laser – by US Special Forces units on the ground. The JDAM was used mostly for fixed targets. In anticipation of war in Iraq, the Pentagon is boosting their production.

"When laser-guided bombs fail, they tend to fail spectacularly," says Arkin. "They could go a mile or more off target, because if a laser fails to lock, if the laser is impacted by weather, if the pilot makes an error, that bomb does not know where to go."

But if the JDAM's satellite system fails, its inertial system kicks in, usually bringing it to within 50 yards of the target.

The advice given after the Amiriyah incident by the Pentagon was that "the safest place for an Iraqi civilian is at home in his bed." But that was little solace to Iraqis who were near the Amiriyah shelter when it was hit by "smart" bombs that worked flawlessly.

Hussein Abdallah still lives in the house across from the shelter, and was asleep in his bed at 4:30 a.m. when the bombs dropped, blasting out the windows of his house, splitting still-visible cracks along grey plastered foundations, and sending a chunk of hot shrapnel the size of his thick forearm hurtling in a wall just 1.5 feet from his head. "We fell down because of fear of the explosion. Our bodies were trembling," recalls Mr. Abdallah, a portly truck driver whose toes protrude from worn plastic sandals.

His children were affected most, when they saw rescue workers pull the dead from the bunker. "In every war there are civilian casualties," Abdallah says. "They will throw rockets, not stones. Always, innocent people will die."

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