Operation Southern Focus was a period in the months leading up to the
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
(called "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
) in which the military responses to violations of the southern
Iraqi no-fly zones
The Iraqi no-fly zones conflict was a low-level conflict in the two no-fly zones (NFZs) in Iraq that were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France after the Gulf War of 1991. The United States stated that the NFZs were intend ...
were increased, with more intensive bombing of
air defense artillery
The Air Defense Artillery Branch is the branch of the United States Army that specializes in anti-aircraft weapons (such as surface to air missiles). In the U.S. Army, these groups are composed of mainly air defense systems such as the Patrio ...
installations and other military complexes. It also marked a period of increased
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
gathering. The operation lasted from June 2002 until the beginning of the invasion in March 2003. It was intended to be a "softening up" period prior to invasion, degrading
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
's air defense and communication abilities. Lieutenant General
T. Michael Moseley
Teed Michael "Buzz" Moseley (born September 3, 1949) is a retired United States Air Force general who served as the 18th Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He is a fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours in fighters and trainer ...
revealed the operation's existence in mid-2003.
Operation
The operation was not publicly declared at the time, and was just said to be an intensification of the already-existing
Operation Southern Watch
Operation Southern Watch was an air-centric military operation conducted by the United States Department of Defense from Summer 1992 to Spring 2003.
United States Central Command's Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) had the mission of mon ...
. When it began, the
United States Defense Department
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
and
CENTCOM stated that increasing numbers of bombings of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i installations in the region were merely in response to more attacks by the air-defense forces of that country. The Iraqi no-fly zones had been patrolled continuously since the end of the 1991
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
, and bombings by American and coalition
fighter aircraft had taken place on a regular basis. However, Southern Focus saw many more
engagements. Coalition forces responded to 651 attacks by dropping 606 bombs on 391 targets over the course of the operation.
Bombs usage
The tonnage of bombs dropped increased from 0 in March 2002 and 0.3 in April 2002 to between 7 and 14 tons per month in May–August, reaching a pre-war peak of 54.6 tons in September – prior to Congress' 11 October
authorisation of the invasion. The September attacks included a 5 September 100-aircraft attack on the main air defence site in western Iraq. According to ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British Political magazine, political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney Webb, Sidney and Beatrice ...
'' this was "Located at the furthest extreme of the southern no-fly zone, far away from the areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on the Shias, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected."
Success
Iraq's only success came on 23 December 2002, when a USAF
RQ-1 Predator
The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator (often referred to as the predator drone) is an American remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) built by General Atomics that was used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency ...
UAV was experimentally armed with
AIM-92 Stingers and sent to patrol the no-fly zone in an attempt to bait Iraqi fighters into combat. It was spotted by two Iraqi
MiG-23
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-23; NATO reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. It is a third-generati ...
s and attacked, however both planes were unable to achieve a lock-on.
A
MiG-25
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-25; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. Designed by th ...
of the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was then scrambled to assist.
Both aircraft fired missiles at each other, however, the Iraqi jet was outside of the range of the Stinger so the American missile fell short. The Iraqi missile hit the Predator, destroying it. This was the first time an unmanned aircraft had been used in air-to-air combat.
The first combat use of the U.S. Navys new
F/A-18E Super Hornet
The Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet are twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole fighter aircraft variants based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. The F/A-18E single-seat and F/A-18F tandem-seat variants are larger and more ad ...
fighter-bomber occurred in November 2002 during Operation Southern Focus, when aircraft from
Strike Fighter Squadron 115 (VFA-115) flying from the
aircraft carrier struck surface-to-air missile sites and command and control targets near
Al Kut
Kūt ( ar, ٱلْكُوت, al-Kūt), officially Al-Kut, also spelled Kutulamare or Kut al-Imara, is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about south east of Baghdad. the estimated population is about 389,400 people.
It ...
.
[John Pike (26 March 2004)]
Operation Southern Focus.
GlobalSecurity.org. Accessed 4 May 2004.
See also
*
Downing Street memo
*
Operation Rockingham
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Southern Focus
Military operations involving Iraq
Aerial bombing operations and battles
2002 in Iraq
2003 in Iraq
Conflicts in 2002
Conflicts in 2003