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		The first wave of F-lllF aircraft bombed strategic
targets in Iraq and occupied Kuwait such as command and control
facilities, airfields and chemical/biological warfare agent plants.
Strike forces used high precision weapons such as GBU-24 guided
bombs, is well as cluster munitions such as the CBU-89. The fifty-
four aircraft launched achieved a seventy-six percent success rate,
with forty-one of the aircraft successfully hitting their assigned
targets.   Missions rated as unsuccessful included the six air
aborts and seven missions where the bombs did not strike the target
for various reasons. Crews reported heavy anti-aircraft artillery
over several targets, consisting mainly of smaller caliber 23
millimeter rounds. A few noted larger caliber artillery such as 57
millimeter, but these were usually encountered further from target
areas. The AAA generally appeared to be visually targeted, with
only a few signs of radar targeting. Spotlights were used in an
attempt to see the attacking aircraft and increase the accuracy of
antiaircraft fire, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful
Despite the relative ineffectiveness of the AAA, it was
exceptionally thick in some areas, with aircrews describing the
impression of flying through a wall of tracers. Two aircraft
received very minor battle damage as a result of flak, with one
aircraft having a cracked windscreen and another having a few
shrapnel holes underneath the engine compartments on the bottom
rear of the aircraft. All aircraft returned safely to base,
however.

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