The story of Iraq is usually told at ground level: roadside bombs, U.S. raids on insurgent hideouts, and pipeline explosions. But well after the big blasts of the war's first nights two years ago, the U.S. bombing of Iraq has gone on with relatively little attention from the media.
From last May through February, U.S. warplanes flew 13,000 missions and dropped about 490 bombs and missiles weighing a combined 265,800 pounds. That's not much compared to the 41,000 coalition missions flown during the first month of the war in March and April 2003, but in those early days there was an organized Iraqi military with air defense installations and regime headquarters. Those are gone, but the number of bombings rose sharply twice last year, jumping from 13 in May to 127 in August, and from 50 bombings a month in September and October to more than 100 in November, according to numbers obtained from military officials by the Voice. The bombing has since decreased substantially.

The press often noted warplanes in action, from the November '04 Falluja assault to the warplane that hit the wrong target near Mosul in January, killing at least five innocents. But press descriptions of big days of bombing—like November 10, when 12,000 pounds of ordnance rained down—weren't very elaborate. And while the military reported its bombing runs, the details went only so far: Of an August 25 operation that involved 22 bombs weighing 500 pounds apiece, Centcom said merely that the bombardment was for "close air support."