Operation Desert Storm

The 43-day air campaign during Operation Desert Storm was the first large use of U.S. air power since Vietnam. The Air Campaign employed nearly every type of fixed-wing aircraft in the U.S. inventory, flying about 40,000 air-to-ground and 50,000 support sorties. About 1,600 U.S. combat aircraft were deployed by the end of the war. By historical standards, the intensity of the air campaign was substantial: The U.S. bomb tonnage dropped per day equaled 85 percent of that dropped by the United States on Germany and Japan during World War II. The air campaign incurred minimal casualties and resulted in the liberation of Kuwait and the collapse of Iraqi forces. However, GAO's analysis of the air campaign revealed several issues that should be addressed before the next military campaign. For example, pilots found that infrared, electro-optical, and laser systems were all seriously affected by clouds, rain, fog, smoke, and even high humidity. Pilots said that they were sometimes unable to tell whether a presumed target was a tank or a truck or whether it had already been destroyed. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and defense contractors have made overstated and misleading claims about the weapons used during the air campaign, particularly the F-117 stealth fighter, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and laser-guided bombs. GAO questions the military's increased reliance on precision guided munitions given their limited effectiveness during the Persian Gulf War.

GAO found that: (1) target identification, battle damage assessment (BDA), target information dissemination, and intelligence gathering limitations led to higher mission costs and reduced effectiveness; (2) weapons systems' effectiveness during Desert Storm could not be fully analyzed because many systems could not be used in adverse weather conditions and were not used at their optimal altitudes; (3) the air campaign's success resulted from the availability of a mix of strike and support aircraft and munitions that had a wide range of capabilities; (4) data could not support the contention that higher-cost aircraft were generally more effective or capable than lower-cost aircraft; (5) the number of attack and strike aircraft available by 2000 will decrease due to the scheduled retirement of many Desert Storm aircraft; (6) although the Department of Defense (DOD) did not achieve its one-target, one-bomb efficiency goal, and the success rate of guided munitions could not be validated by campaign data, guided munitions accounted for most of the campaign's munitions costs; (7) the effectiveness of many systems that incorporate complex or advanced technologies may be limited in future missions, since many of these systems require specific operating conditions to operate effectively; and (8) many of DOD and manufacturers' postwar claims about weapon system performance were overstated, misleading, inconsistent, or unverifiable.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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