Summary

Air power clearly achieved many of the objectives of Operation Desert Storm, but fell short of fully achieving others. GAO's declassified review of available data indicate that many postwar claims by manufacturers and the Defense Department (DOD) about the performance of sophisticated weapon systems--particularly the F-117, the Tomahawk land attack missile, and laser-guided bombs-- were overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the data, or unverifiable. Air power damage to several major targets was less than that suggested in a Defense Department (DOD) report to Congress. The lessons learned from Desert Storm are limited because of the unique conditions, the strike tactics used by the coalition, the limited Iraqi response, and the limited data on weapon system effectiveness. The climate and terrain were generally conducive to air strikes, and the coalition had nearly six months to plan the operation. The strong likelihood of success allowed U.S. commanders to favor strike tactics that emphasized pilot and aircraft survivability rather than weapon system effectiveness. In addition, the Iraqis employed few, if any, electronic countermeasures and presented almost no air-to-air opposition. As a result, Desert Storm did not rigorously test aircraft and weapon systems used in the air campaign.

GAO noted that: (1) air power clearly achieved many of Desert Storm's objectives but fell short of fully achieving others; (2) the available quantitative and qualitative data indicate that air power damage to several major target sets was more limited than DOD's title V report to the Congress stated; (3) these data show clear success against the oil and electrical target categories, but less success against Iraqi air defense, command, control, and communications, and lines of communication; (4) success against nuclear-related, mobile Scud, and Republican Guard targets was the least measurable; (5) the lessons that can be learned from Desert Storm are limited because of the unique conditions, the strike tactics employed by the coalition, the limited Iraqi response, and limited data on weapon system effectiveness; (6) the strong likelihood of campaign success enabled U.S. commanders to favor strike tactics that maximized aircraft and pilot survivability rather than weapon system effectiveness; (7) the Iraqis employed few, if any, electronic countermeasures and presented almost no air-to-air opposition; (8) as a result, Desert Storm did not consistently or rigorously test all the performance parameters of aircraft and weapon systems used in the air campaign; (9) many of DOD's and manufacturers' postwar claims about weapon system performance were overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the best available data, or unverifiable; (10) aircraft and pilot losses were historically low, partly owing to the use of medium- to high-altitude munition delivery tactics that nonetheless both reduced the accuracy of guided and unguided munitions and hindered target identification and acquisition; (11) air power was inhibited by the limited ability of aircraft sensors to identify and acquire targets, the failure to gather intelligence on critical targets, and the inability to collect and disseminate battle damage assessments (BDA) in a timely manner; (12) the contributions of guided weaponry incorporating advanced technologies and their delivery platforms were limited because the cooperative operating conditions they require were not consistently encountered; (13) the important contributions of stealth and laser-guided bombs were emphasized as was the need for more and better BDA and less attention was paid to the significant contributions of less-sophisticated systems and the performance of critical tasks such as the identification and acquisition of targets; and (14) there was no apparent link between the cost of aircraft and munitions and their performance in Desert Storm.