Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!netcom!netcom.UUCP From: jbreeden@netcom.UUCP (John Breeden) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: U.S. Air Force bombs AT&T !! Message-ID: <21583@netcom.UUCP> Date: 22 Jan 91 04:55:52 GMT Sender: jbreeden@netcom.UUCP Organization: Netcom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760 guest} Lines: 27 (San Jose Mercury News, Jan 17th, 1991) SHOT HEARD ROUND THE GULF HIT AT&T SITE IN SAUDI ARABIA (AP) - The opening shot of the war with Iraq was a 2,000 pound bomb dropped squarely into the AT&T building in downtown Bagdad by a Stealth fighter, an Air Force commander disclosed today. Col Alton C. Whitley, commanding the 37th Tactical Figher Wing, told reporters at the air base where Stealth 117A fighers are based that Thursday's attack had been a brilliant success. He credited new technology that enables aircraft to avoid radar detection and split-second timing in planning and executing the attack. Whitley said F117As from two squadrons carried out some 30 sorties against 80 Iraqi targets in the pre-dawn hours Thursday. The results of these attacks where shown to reporters in dramatic video footage recorded by sensors in the planes. The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. building, near the Tigris River, was a target because of the communications it provided the Iraqi armed forces. In the video footage, the building comes into the cross-hair site centered on it's roof to control the flight of the laser guided bomb. As the building passes beneath the fighter, still undetected by Iraqi defenses, the viewer sees a mighty blast hurling debris from all sides of the building.