WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. B-1 bomber that aimed to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad dropped four satellite-guided bombs only 12 minutes after receiving orders that "this is the big one," the plane's weapons officer said on Tuesday.
"We used four weapons on the target," Air Force Lt. Col. Fred Swan, told Pentagon reporters of Monday's attack in a telephone interview from the region. "From the time we got the coordinates, it took 12 minutes to get the bombs on target."
Swan, one of four crewmen on the aircraft, said two earth-penetrating GBU-31 2,000-pound bombs and two delayed-fuse bombs of the same size were used.
He said he did not know who was in the destroyed building, but that the air traffic controller in a nearby airborne radar plane told the B-1 jet's crew before the daylight raid, "This is the big one."
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