The Unseen War: Allied Airpower and the Takedown of Saddam Hussein

The Unseen War: Allied Airpower and the Takedown of Saddam Hussein By Benjamin S. Lambeth Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013 480 pages $59.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] After describing the overwhelming 2003 campaign to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Stephen Budiansky closes his book Air Power (2004) with this passage: The great historical joke on airmen was that after having struggled for a century to escape the battlefield in their quest for equal status and independence --having fought so many bitter battles to free themselves from the indignity' of providing "mere support" to ground forces--it was on the battlefield where air power finally achieved not merely equality', but its claim to ascendancy. That quote has caused very lively debates in classrooms at the Army War College, and now Benjamin Lambeth has provided the most thorough evaluation available of airpower's role in the 23 days of formal conventional combat that began Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lambeth is the most eloquent and enthusiastic writer on American airpower today. Though published by Naval Institute Press, his study was initially written for RAND under the sponsorship of US Air Forces Central (AFCENT), known until 2009 as US Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF). Lambeth does not claim quite as much as Budiansky, but he does argue "counterland air attack has increasingly begun to move doctrinally beyond solely the classic supporting roles of CAS (direct support) and air interdiction (indirect support) toward missions that are not intended just to support the friendly ground force, but rather to destroy the enemy's army directly and independently as the overall main weight of effort." (296) Readers who are prone to discount such assertions as USAF hype need to read Lambeth's account and think seriously about the implications of what he has to say. While the beginning of OIF was "an all but flawless undertaking by joint and combined forces" including not only land components but indispensable contributions from "virtually the entire spectrum of allied, air, maritime and space capabilities," (4) Lambeth points out correctly the air campaign has been underreported in postwar accounts of the march on Baghdad. This was not only due to the lack of embedded reporters with air units, but also because the continuing violence in Iraq quickly overshadowed the early successes. There was far more coverage of air operations in 1991, with the long period of initial bombing before the ground attack was launched. Lambeth aims to fill the gaps, and does so admirably. He describes the high-level planning in Washington and in headquarters at CENTCOM and CENTAF. The initial "shock and awe" plan was modified by desires to limit noncombatant casualties and to preserve infrastructure, and by General Tommy Franks' decision to attack early. That meant CENTAF's major air offensive started 28 hours after ground forces had begun their advance and had overrun many areas. …