★ Meanwhile, I had no doubt that the Iraqi defenders were as intelligent and courageous as any soldiers. I also had no doubt that they loved their country, and were willing to die in its defense, no matter how much they loved or despised Saddam Hussein and his gang. My conclusion: after weakening their systems of defense, we had to weaken their spirit of defense.

To that end, we conducted a campaign to strike fear in their hearts. I knew they would man their radars, fire their SAMs, and shoot their guns at our aircraft. They would do this, first, in defense of their people and their nation, but perhaps more important, to avoid being arrested and executed by their military superiors. I wanted thousands of Iraqi gunners who felt good about shooting (they would under most circumstances) but didn’t feel bad about missing. You know, shoot your SAM missile, especially when the major is around, but don’t bother to turn on the tracking radar needed to guide the SAM to the Coalition aircraft. Bluntly, we were going to bribe the Iraqi air defenders by using their own lives as the payment.

The main target of the intimidation campaign was surface-to-air radar operations. This was nothing new. In Vietnam, we had learned the hard way that the SAM is a tough nut to crack. Now we had a war with lots of SAMs, most of which were more deadly than Vietnam’s SA-2s. We also had F-4G Wild Weasels that were equipped with the new AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM), a radar-killing weapon more accurate and easier to employ than anything we’d used in Vietnam. Though the F-4Gs were oldsters next to their F-16 wingmen, they were much more capable than the Vietnam-era F-105G Thunderchiefs I had flown. Most of all, we had a host of Wild Weasel aircrews who had benefited from superb electronic training at monthly Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB in Nevada. The Air Force, Marines, Navy, and allied crews who had flown in Red Flag knew what these Weasels could do. The F-4G “Rhinos” were old and ugly, but now that we were at war the first thing the F-16 flight leaders wanted to know was “Where will the Weasels be during our next mission?”

But first, we had to light up the minds of the SAM operators with fear. And to do this, we staged a party—“Puba’s Party.”

General Larry Henry (“Puba”) had come to me in August to work in the “Black Hole” developing our offensive air campaign. His experience as an electronic-warfare officer in Wild Weasels, and his generally twisted mind, created the party we threw for the Iraqi radar operators.