WASHINGTON -- His charges are flying off a carrier deck at night against one of the most formidable air defense systems in the world. But Cap. Tom Hagen says the risk to pilots flying off the USS Enterprise against targets in Iraq is manageable.

In a telephone interview from his office on the giant carrier, Hagen said the second wave of strikes against Iraq had gone smoothly. An array of Navy warplanes, including F-18s, F-14s, and EA-6Bs, was returning to the deck of the ship as it steamed in the northern Persian Gulf.Hagen said that Iraq's air defenses, while daunting, are also a known quantity, enabling U.S. forces to train in detail for engagements like the one under way today.

"The Iraqis have had formidable air defenses for quite some time. This engagement is certainly not their first in recent history," Hagen said. "We train throughout our workup period prior to deploying for scenarios such as the very one we're in."

Aboard the Enterprise as part of Carrier Air Wing 3 are 72 aircraft and air crews totaling 225, Hagen said. Morale was high as the pilots and teams of flight deck coordinators went about their work after weeks of tension over whether the United States would launch strikes on Iraq.

"The air crews are very well equipped to defend against those air defenses," Hagen said. "We're quite confident that we can work against those threats very well." While he declined to go into operational details, Hagen said, "The Iraqis are finding us a very uncomfortable force to deal with."

Defense officials said today that F-18s armed with laser-guided weapons struck at Iraqi air defense targets in the southern quarter of the country. Atop the priority list were radar dishes, mobile surface-to-air missile launchers and the command and control centers that link the Iraqi air defense network together.

In the second day of strikes, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Iraqi radars were not "lighting up" the Navy aircraft, meaning that their radars were either knocked out of action or deliberately turned off to avoid destruction by radar-seeking HARM missiles.

In addition to weapons that can destroy air defense systems, the Enterprise also is launching radar jamming aircraft, and its crews are trained in strike tactics and evasive maneuvers that reduce the risk of U.S. aircraft being downed, Hagen said.

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All eight cruise missile-equipped ships in the Enterprise carrier task force launched Tomahawk missiles Wednesday and today against Iraq. More than 200 missiles were launched and as many as 300 more could be on the way. The missile-launching ships were the cruiser USS Gettysburg, destroyers Paul Hamilton, Hopper, Stout, Fletcher, Hayler and Nicholson, and the submarine Miami.

Hagen, a native of Billings, Mont., commands an air wing based at Naval Air Station Oceana, in Virginia Beach, Va.

Although there have been no U.S. or British casualties so far, Hagen stopped short of calling the strikes glitch-free.

"There's always some learning points as we do these missions," Hagen said. "We take lessons learned back so we refine our plans, even things as simple as weather to contend with (and) changes in the threat scenario."

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