Turkey, Saudi Arabia requested ban on missile flyovers

‘‘It was a request from the nations that we’ve been flying Tomahawk missions over,’’ Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said in his daily briefing aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. ‘‘People are putting together information and trying to answer whatever questions or concerns they have.’’
At the Pentagon and at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar, other officials suggested that some Tomahawk routes crossing Saudi airspace might remain available if U.S. commanders have aparticular need for them.
‘‘We have actually coordinated with the Saudis to hold on to a couple of routes,’’ said Maj. Gen Victor Renuart, briefing reporters in Qatar.
Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, deputy director for operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, said just seven of the nearly 700 Tomahawks fired to date have veered off course. None of those missiles exploded because their warheads are not armed until just before they reach their programmed targets.

Stufflebeem, who commands a task force over the Truman and Theodore Roosevelt carrier battle groups, said he did not know if there were any suspected causes of the misfiring missiles. Other weapons will be employed while investigators look fora cause, Stufflebeem said.

‘‘It’s a weapon of choice in some targets based upon a threat to manned aircraft. But we also have stand-off weapons that are fired from aircraft,’’ he said. ‘‘So there just about isn’t any target we can’t get at with other types of weapons.’’

Stufflebeem said he expected U.S. forces to continue to fire Tomahawks from the Persian Gulf.

Other air operations from the Truman continued Friday and Saturday with pilots leaving before dawn and returning five to six hours later. While officials declined to name specific targets, Stufflebeem said his forces have begun to strike near Iraq’s capital.

‘‘We are reaching targets as far away as Baghdad,’’ the admiral said. ‘‘We are working against the Iraqi targets that are identified to us by the special operations forces on the ground, and so we have been working sort of ina corridor — and that’s my word, not anything formal — around Kirkuk to the Mosul area.’’
The carrier also received a massive load of ordnance — mostly precision-guided JDAMs — by helicopter Saturday afternoon from the supply ship Mount Baker.