U.S. Can Confirm Only 11 Iraqi Jet Kills

Pentagon officials told Congress today that they can confirm destruction of just 11 Iraqi planes in the Persian Gulf air war. They said Iraqi aircraft dispersed to the north when under attack while others were protected in concrete bunkers.

Lawmakers also said they were told that Iraq has about 30 mobile missile launchers left after two days of intense air raids.

Before the start of hostilities, U.S. military and intelligence officials estimated that there were about 700 planes in the Iraqi air force.

At a briefing earlier today in Saudi Arabia, Gen. Charles Horner, the senior U.S. Air Force officer in the Persian Gulf, said that so far Iraqi planes have broken off engagement with allied jets and fled north “as soon as our fire control radars lock onto them.”

Horner suggested the total number of planes destroyed could be much higher than the number of confirmed kills. “Unfortunately, a lot of their aircraft are in hardened shelters. We attack the shelter and we really don’t know the results on the aircraft,” he said.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the U.S. commander in Saudi Arabia, said a published report that Iraq’s Elite Republican Guard was virtually wiped out by bombing attacks, particularly by U.S. B-52s, was “certainly premature and, I believe, incorrect at the present time.”

The report by the San Jose Mercury News said an intelligence report circulating at the Pentagon the day after the initial air strikes estimated that 150,000 members of the Republican Guards were killed or wounded in a bombing raid by B-52s.

At a congressional briefing, officials said U.S. planes were bombing Republican Guard positions around the clock.

“They’re not getting much sleep,” Rep. William L. Dickinson (R-Ala.) said of the Iraqi troops.