Tuesday, September 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Pilots, ground forces search for Scud missiles near Nellis

Lt. Michael Alwes leads a tour group last week past an SS-1B Scud surface-to-surface missile at Nellis Air Force Base. Actual and simulated Scuds were used at the Nellis range for training a special coalition team of air and ground forces before the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett.

Months before the war in Iraq began, a U.S.-led team of coalition pilots and special ground forces practiced hunting for Scud missiles hidden in the sprawling training range north of Nellis Air Force Base.

The plan, said a chief training officer from Air Combat Command in Langley, Va., was to ensure the fighter jets, bombers, spy planes and ground troops could locate any Scuds that might be hidden in western Iraq.

The effort was to avert a scenario like the one that occurred a decade ago in the Persian Gulf region when Iraq fired 90 Scud missiles, mostly at Israel and Saudi Arabia. One hit a barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 U.S. soldiers.

"Our primary training objective was to allow crews to positively identify a Scud," said Col. Jerry Dillon, deputy chief of training of the command's Flight Operations Branch.

In the exercises, which lasted from August 2002 until January, three months before the war began, as many as four Scud missiles were moved around the Nevada range for the team to find using reconnaissance, intelligence and targeting systems.

"We also put together some realistic ground targets, simulated decoy-type targets," Dillon said by telephone last week. "We knew if we found them, we could kill them, but the basic premise was to find them."

The Nellis range, with its desert terrain and similarities to western Iraq provided a unique opportunity for the rehearsal. "I can't think of anywhere else in the world we could have trained as effectively," he said.

Dillon provided the first details about the Scud exercise since Air Force Secretary James Roche last month noted the essential role of the Nellis range in preparing for the war. Until Roche's comment, the existence of the Scud maneuvers remained under wraps.

With as many as 24 Scud systems unaccounted for after the first Persian Gulf War, the effort to find any that might remain was paramount to preventing a possible attack on U.S. forces and allies in the region, particularly in light of their potential to deliver chemical or biological warheads.

But none of these long-range Scuds was launched during the recent war, which began March 20.

"The launches that did happen weren't actual Scuds. They were shorter-range missiles," he said, declining to comment on specifics about targets the team did engage.

"Our strategic objective was to keep our Western allies safe, and that's what we did."

Dillon said the team began with table-top exercises before the first "live fly" in October. Aircraft and pilots from the United States and the United Kingdom worked with special ground forces, which included Australian troops.

"All those players were part of the team from the day we met to the last live fly," said Dillon, a strategist on the overseas team.

About a dozen aircraft would fly the Nellis range, and remote-controlled Predator spy planes would scan the desert with near-real time video-imaging cameras. All players in the air and on the ground could communicate on a dedicated radio frequency.

The ground forces, too, were charged with seeking out and destroying Scuds.

Their job, after training at Nellis, was to occupy the western Iraqi desert, find possible launch sites and equipment and destroy them using anything from small arms to shoulder-launched missiles.

Some had the capability to shine lasers on targets that could be used to guide bombs or missiles from strike aircraft, a technique known as "buddy lasing."

Gen. Tommy Franks, who was commander of the U.S. Central Command during the war, has said that these Special Forces teams and special operations units from Australia and the United Kingdom deployed in western Iraq before the start of major combat operations on March 20.

They knocked out roughly 100 enemy observation posts near Iraq's borders with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan.