Media outlets visit one of the many impact sites created by the missile attacks at al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Jan. 13, 2020. Commanders at al Asad had to decide who would stay on base during the attack, which came with little warning, and who would be evacuated to carry on operations, a report released by the Air Force on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, shows. (Derek Mustard/U.S. Army)
Media outlets visit one of the many impact sites created by the missile attacks at al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Jan. 13, 2020. Commanders at al Asad had to decide who would stay on base during the attack, which came with little warning, and who would be evacuated to carry on operations, a report released by the Air Force on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, shows. (Derek Mustard/U.S. Army)
A U.S. airman searches for salvageable items in the debris caused by Iranian missile attacks at al Asad Air Base, Iraq in January. A report released by the Air Force on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, describes what troops on the base went through and the decisions commanders had to make, during the harrowing few hours of the attack. (Derek Mustard/U.S. Army)
U.S. soldiers, airmen and civilian contractors remove debris from missile attacks at al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Jan. 13, 2020. A report released by the Air Force on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, describes what troops on the base went through and the decisions commanders had to make, during the harrowing few hours of the attack. (Derek Mustard/U.S. Army)
Army Col. Myles B. Caggins III, Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson, left, and Maj. Charlie Dietz, CJTF-OIR public affairs officer, walk through the impact site of a ballistic missile attack at al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Jan. 13, 2020. A report released by the Air Force on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, describes the life-or-death decisions commanders had to make during the harrowing few hours of the attack. (Derek Mustard/U.S. Army)
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Staci Coleman described in a report released on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 by the Air Force how Iranian missiles hit al Asad Air Base in Iraq during January ''with a force impossible to put into words.'' (U.S. Air Force)
U.S. Air Force Capt. Adella Ramos said in a report released on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 by the Air Force that commanders had to make ''life or death decisions based on little information and a whole lot of gut,'' ahead of an Iranian missile attack on al Asad Air Base in Iraq in January 2020. Ramos was one of dozens of airmen whose accounts of the attack were included in the 36-page report. (U.S. Air Force)
U.S. Air Force Maj. Johnathan Jordan joked with and reassured the airmen who were evacuated with him from al Asad Air Base in Iraq just before a series of missile attacks in January, he said in a report released Tuesday, April 21, 2020 by the Air Force. But internally, he wrestled with fears that they might have to identify the bodies of friends and lay them to rest. (U.S. Air Force)
With little advanced warning of an Iranian ballistic missile attack in early January, commanders at al Asad Air Base in Iraq had to decide who would stay — possibly to die — and who would be evacuated to carry on operations, a new Air Force report shows.
“I watched as commanders made life or death decisions based on little information and a whole lot of gut,” said Capt. Adella Ramos, a flight commander and one of dozens of airmen whose firsthand accounts of the night of Jan. 7 into Jan. 8 were included in the 36-page report released Tuesday by U.S. Air Forces Central Command.
No Americans died in the strikes, which hit al Asad and an air base in Irbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region, but more than 100 suffered brain injuries.
U.S. officials have said they believed the attacks were intended to cause maximum casualties and damage, and the military has since deployed Patriot missile batteries to both locations to shoot down incoming missiles.
Warnings that the retaliatory strike was imminent came four days after a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, an influential general, along with the head of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia outside Baghdad’s international airport on Jan. 3. The intelligence, which came at about 8 p.m., said an “attack window” was expected from 11 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., some airmen recalled.
The 160-member 443rd Air Expeditionary Squadron at al Asad was split in half, with 80 sent to safety, recounted squadron commander Lt. Col. Staci Coleman.
“I was being forced to gamble with my members’ lives by something I couldn’t control,” Coleman said. “I honestly thought anyone remaining behind would perish … and it made me feel sick and helpless.”
The accounts detail the tough decisions leaders had to make in the hours before the first volley struck, and how they endured the fear and uncertainty as they hunkered down in bunkers or looked around the base for casualties and damage.
Several turned to their religious faith, thought of family and sought comfort from their friends in what they feared were their last moments.
At bases elsewhere, some airmen scrambled to evacuate personnel minutes before the alert announced “incoming,” while others maneuvered some 20 helicopters onto a landing zone “like jigsaw pieces” as the aircraft ferried evacuees to safety.
Coleman was settled into a bunker at al Asad when the first of several volleys hit.
“The ground shook with a force impossible to put into words,” she recalled. “The blast waves could be felt throughout the entire body.”
After the third wave, she was sure they’d live, if the bunker didn’t take a direct hit, but she remained concerned about airmen outside the bunker and an airfield operations team in a separate bunker.
The first missile struck about 100 meters from a team of security forces airmen, one account said. More “lit up the night sky with every impact.” At one point, the team helped a group of soldiers escape from a damaged guard tower where flames were blocking the entrance.
The squadron’s director of operations, Maj. Johnathan Jordan, tried to reassure the airmen with him who had been evacuated from the base. He cracked jokes and talked though their “anger of not being with those we left behind,” while internally he wrestled with the possibility of having to identify the bodies of friends and lay them to rest.
Eventually, back at al Asad, a knock came at the door of Coleman’s bunker and security forces airmen reported no casualties — “a miracle,” she said.
An unnamed security forces airman recalled looking at the fire from the damage and laughing in disbelief that everyone had survived.
“I have never been so happy to see the sunrise,” he recalled.
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