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Since then, U.S. warplanes have attacked Iraqi positions in northern Iraq on 89 days--about one of every two days they have flown. Just last week jets bombed missile sites around Mosul for three days. According to documents reviewed by TIME, on some days the Air Force has dropped more than 30 bombs and missiles on as many as half a dozen Iraqi targets. Two months ago, the war ratcheted up when U.S. warplanes attacked an air-defense center south of Mosul and later discovered they had caused "serious destruction" to a 500-man unit hidden there, according to a senior commander. The Administration, senior aides insist, finally has "a serious strategy" for keeping Saddam in his box and eventually ousting him. In his State Department office, Ricciardone has a framed picture of TIME's 1992 cover of Saddam with its red bull's-eye over his face.
Saddam doesn't have to duck for cover just yet. Personally, the bombings endanger him little. And they seem to have had slight effect on his power base, though it is tough to judge popular support for the dictator. One year after Clinton unveiled his plans to overthrow Saddam, Iraqi opposition groups grumble that the program is being staged more for show than out of any conviction that the exiles have a chance of succeeding. House International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman asserts flatly, "The Administration is not very serious...about replacing Saddam's regime."
DODGING THE GOLDEN BB
At Incirlik, an isolated Turkish base 444 miles southeast of Istanbul, the Gulf War has never really ended. Most mornings some two dozen American F-15s and F-16s scream skyward, along with E-3 and RC-135 command planes and KC-135 tankers to keep them safely flying and fueled. An hour later, in a delicately choreographed ballet 400 miles east, the warplanes take their final sips of gas before turning south toward Iraq. Their mission: to show the Iraqi military how impotent Saddam is in protecting Iraqi sovereignty--and them. Maybe this will foment rebellion.
The war out of Incirlik began last Dec. 28 following a four-day U.S. bombing campaign designed to hinder Saddam's efforts to build atomic, biological and chemical weapons. Since then, according to Pentagon reports, American pilots have flown close to 12,000 missions, dropped some 1,200 bombs on nearly 300 targets and destroyed 139 anti-air artillery guns, 28 radars, 13 mobile surface-to-air missile launchers and 22 command sites--all without a single scratch on American property. For the most part, the Iraqis lie low and launch a flurry of flak, hoping to down a warplane and deliver a live pilot to Saddam. "If you're looking at the right place at the right time, you can see the muzzles flash," says Captain Brian Baldwin, an F-15 pilot. "They're looking for the golden BB."
Lieut. Colonel Vincent DiFronzo, an F-15 pilot, says the Iraqi missiles and artillery are getting closer to hitting U.S. warplanes, which fly at more than 20,000 ft. to avoid Iraqi fire. "They're making adjustments that allow them to cover more altitude," he says. The Iraqis fire usually with no electronic guidance, which would sound an alarm in U.S. cockpits. Often the only alert pilots have is the silent pop of charcoal-gray puffs of smoke from exploding artillery hundreds or thousands of feet below. U.S. pilots say they attack only after Iraqi forces threaten them.