Many Iraqi civilians lost their lives when Amiriyah shelter^[1] was hit by USAF smart bombs on 13 February 1991 during the Gulf War. Seal of the Air Force. ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... C Company, 1st Battalion, The Staffordshire Regiment, 1st UK Armoured Division The 1991 Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of approximately 30 nations mandated by the United Nations and led by the United States. ...

In most cases, the Allies avoided hitting civilian-only facilities. However, on February 13, 1991, two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroyed the Amiriyah bunker facility, which the Iraqis claimed was for the auspices of an air shelter. U.S. officials claimed that the blockhouse was a military communications center, but Western reporters have been unable to find evidence for this. The White House claims, in a report titled Apparatus of Lies: Crafting Tragedy, that US intelligence sources reported the blockhouse was being used for military command purposes.[2] In his book, Saddam's Bombmaker, the former director of Iraq's nuclear weapon program, who defected to the west, supports the theory that the facility was used for both purposes. February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BOLT-117 laser guided bomb Precision-guided munitions (smart munitions or smart bombs) are self-guiding weapons intended to maximize damage to the target while minimizing collateral damage. Because the damage effects of an explosive weapon scale as a power law with distance, quite modest improvements in accuracy (and hence... A 19th-century-era block house in Fort York, Toronto In military science, a blockhouse is a small, isolated fort in the form of a single building. ...

We sought refuge several times at the shelter.... But it was always filled.... The shelter had television sets, drinking fountains, its own electrical generator, and looked sturdy enough to withstand a hit from conventional weapons. But I stopped trying to get in one night after noticing some long black limousines slithering in and out of an underground gate in the back. I asked around and was told that it was a command center. After considering it more closely, I decided it was probably Saddam's own operational base.

Charles Allen, CIA's National Intelligence Officer for Warning supported the selection of bomb targets during the the first Gulf War. He coordinated intelligence with Colonel John Warden, who headed the Air Force's planning cell known as "Checkmate." On February 10, 1991 Allen presented his estimate to Col. Warden that Public Shelter Number 25 in the Southwestern Baghdad suburb of Amiriyah had become an alternative command post and showed no sign of being used as a civilian bomb shelter.

Satellite photos and electronic intercepts indicating this alternative use were regarded as circumstantial and unconvincing to Brigadier General Buster Glosson, who had primary responsibility for targeting. Glosson's comment was that the assessment wasn't "worth a shit." A human source in Iraq, who had previously proven accurate warned the CIA that Iraqi intelligence had begun operating from the shelter. On February 11, Shelter Number 25 was added to the Air Force's attack plan. At 4:30 am the morning of February 13, two F-117 stealth bombers each dropped a 2,000 pound, laser-guided, GBU-27 munition on the shelter. The first cut through ten feet of reinforced concrete before a time-delayed fuze exploded. Minutes later the second bomb followed the path cut by the first bomb. [ Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War, 1993, p. 284-285 ]

In the shelter at the time of the bombing were hundreds of Iraqi civilians. More than 400 people, mostly women and children were killed. Men and boys over the age of 15 had left the shelter to give the women and children some privacy. Jeremy Bowen, a BBC correspondent, was one of the first television reporters on the scene. Bowen was given access to the site and did not find evidence of military use. [ Report aired BBC 1, February 14, 1991 ]

Notes

1. ^  The name Amiriyah can also be spelt Amiriya, Amariya and Amariyah. There is no agreed spelling for the name in English. For example, The BBC uses all four spelling on its web site. CNN uses Amariya, Amariyah and Amiriya, while the Washington Post uses Amiriyah, Amiriya and Amariyah (once).

Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... The Cable News Network, more commonly referred to as CNN, is a cable television network that was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner & Reese Schonfeld [1] [2] (although the latter is not currently recognized in CNNs official history). ... ...

External links

• Image of the damaged roof and floor
• External view of the shelter