Iraq. With the first wave of American bombers departing from Saudi Arabia for Baghdad, there were also F-117 Stealth bombers, invisible to radar, carrying 1,000-kg Paveway laser-guided bombs, and 116 Tomahawk missiles in flight. The technology that guides them and the laser-guided bombs actually originated several decades earlier with integrated circuits from Texas Instruments, and was tested on the Thanh Hoa Bridge in 1972 toward the end of the Vietnam War. Laser-guided bombs hit their targets 13 times more frequently than traditional bombs. This is a game-changing technology, first tested on a large scale in the Persian Gulf in 1991. The success of these weapons reverberates far beyond Iraq’s borders, reaching as far as Moscow and other capitals.
