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OneofthemostchillingmemoriesfromDesertStormwasthefearevoked by Hussein’s use of theater ballistic missiles, or Scuds, against urban targets throughout the Middle East. These missiles could be used to carry chemical or biological agents, and since Saddam had gassed his own people, no one doubted he was capable of using Scuds to launch such an attack against his enemies. The most worrisome attacks had been leveled against Israel. If Israel had retaliated, as was their standard policy, it could have upset the dynamics holding together the already shaky coalition against Iraq. If Israel entered the war, even if uninvited, those Arab states arrayed against Iraq would appear to be on the side of Israel against another Arab state. This would have brought the coalition crashing down, which of course was why Hussein used this tactic. In an effort to end the threat against Israeli and Saudi cities, and to assure Israel that everything possible was being done to end the threat, Coalition forces launched a massive effort to find and destroy the Scuds. This campaign, dubbed “the Scud Hunt,” soaked up a huge percentage of Coalition air power, which was diverted from the larger air campaign against Saddam’s army, and yielded few concrete results. That diversion was probably the only militarily significant result of Hussein’s Scud attacks. Early on in planning a second war with Iraq, U.S. political and military leaders determined a second Scud hunt was necessary. One reason was simple force protection concern—the thought of hundreds or thousands of American soldiers dying in a chemical attack and the impact that would have on the U.S. public was enough to inspire military leaders to make every effort to ensure such an attack never happened. As the war loomed closer, and as it became clear that this war would be much more controversial and any diplomatic agreements even more fragile than in the first Gulf War, the prospect of Scuds raining down on tepid supporters or on Israel made this Scud hunt even more urgent. The second Scud hunt was not going to be a mere repeat of the first, 11.The Scud Hunt and Operations in Western Iraq Scud Hunt and Western Iraq 211 though, for several things had changed since then. First, American military analysts had studied every aspect of Iraqi Scud operations and capabilities and come up with a set of parameters and limitations they could exploit to assist their efforts. Instead of searching throughout the entire haystack, analysts got some pretty good clues that the needle would most likely be found in a few surprisingly small sections. Second, the United States had refined its capabilities. Some refinements were technological —sensors better able to find Scuds; others were operational—forces able to react quicker to information from sensors and hopefully within time to exploit the information. Working together, these advances gave the second Scud hunters tremendous advantages. Of course, this all may have been moot, since evidence today, at least that released to the public, indicates that Hussein had eliminated his chemical and biological weapons, as well as most of his Scuds. But that wasn’t known at the time, so the Scud hunt, which was mostly confined to western Iraq, was a high priority in the war against Saddam. The Scud hunters had a second objective as well. Since they were going to be combing the western Iraqi desert anyway, if they located Iraqi forces, they would engage them. But this was not just a matter of attrition—that is, killing everything they could find—or a serendipitous exploitation of good fortune. There was a larger strategic goal, one that would be exploiting lessons learned in Afghanistan: to pin down as many Iraqi forces as possible in the west so they could not be used against the main effort marching on Baghdad from the south. How this objective was accomplished, with a relatively miniscule force, is a testimonial to the men involved and an illustration of what CAS and small ground forces can do together when applied with ingenuity. As in Afghanistan, a big part of the western effort involved SOF teams that included SOF TACPs. Though they found no Scuds, at least as far as the public knows, they did find a lot of Iraqi forces, and on occasion ran into some trouble. Their efforts, though less visible, are a part of the larger story and certainly bear recounting. One of the key figures leading operations in western Iraq was Lt. Col. George Bochain. Bochain...

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