Coalition air forces used the GBU-10 Paveway II during the 2003 Iraq War; a CENTAF munitions table and Human Rights Watch's air-war appendix both list 236 GBU-10 laser-guided bombs expended.
| Claim | Sources |
|---|---|
| Coalition air forces expended 236 GBU-10 laser-guided bombs during the opening Operation Iraqi Freedom air campaign. | Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers |
| The GBU-10 used in the 2003 Iraq air war was identified as a Paveway II 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb. | Sources: HRW Iraq Air War Weapons |
| The public aggregate munitions records prove use but do not assign individual GBU-10 releases to named targets. | Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers, HRW Iraq Air War Weapons |
Timeline
CENTAF's initial Operation Iraqi Freedom airpower summary covers the opening air campaign and lists 236 GBU-10 laser-guided bombs among guided munitions expended.
Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers
Human Rights Watch's Iraq report appendix lists the GBU-10 Paveway II as a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb and gives the same 236-bomb figure for the 2003 air war.
Sources: HRW Iraq Air War Weapons
The GBU-10 Paveway II is directly documented in the 2003 Iraq War through the coalition air campaign's munitions-expenditure record. CENTAF's Operation Iraqi Freedom airpower summary lists 236 GBU-10 laser-guided bombs among guided munitions expended between 19 March and 18 April 2003.
Human Rights Watch reproduced the same GBU-10 figure in its appendix on weapons used in the Iraq air war, identifying the munition as a 2,000-pound Paveway II laser-guided bomb.
Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers, HRW Iraq Air War Weapons
CENTAF bounded its initial airpower report to the period from 0300Z on 19 March 2003 through 0259Z on 18 April 2003. Within that period, its munitions section records the GBU-10 as part of the guided-weapon mix used by coalition air forces.
Human Rights Watch published its Iraq civilian-casualty report in December 2003 after field research in Iraq, using the same air-war weapons data to document the air campaign's munitions profile.
Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers, HRW Iraq Air War Weapons
The GBU-10's documented role in the 2003 Iraq War was air-delivered precision strike by the U.S.-led coalition. The public record does not identify each individual GBU-10 target in the aggregate munitions table, but it does place the weapon in the coalition guided-munitions inventory actually expended during the opening air campaign.
The weapon fit a broader Paveway family pattern in the campaign. Raytheon describes Paveway laser-guided bombs as more than half of the air-to-ground precision-guided weapons used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, while the CENTAF table separately lists GBU-10, GBU-12, GBU-16, and other guided bomb types. For this page, the direct GBU-10 claim rests on the CENTAF and Human Rights Watch expenditure records rather than on general Paveway-family background.
Sources: CENTAF OIF By The Numbers, HRW Iraq Air War Weapons, Raytheon Paveway Bomb
