U.S. military officials said Iraq lobbed missiles at U.S. forces. No one was injured in the attack. It was unclear what type of missiles had been fired or how many had been fired, but none appeared to have carried chemical or biological warheads.

There were also unconfirmed reports that U.S. Patriot missiles were fired in attempt to intercept the incoming rockets. It is not known if the Patriots hit anything.

The missile attacks came barely seven hours after six U.S. warships launched about 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles and after a pair of F-117A stealth fighters dumped four 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs in what the Pentagon described as a “decapitation mission,” an effort to kill top Iraqi leaders including Saddam Hussein.

At 10:15 p.m. East Coast time, just 45 minutes after the U.S. attack had been launched, President Bush, in a televised address, said, “On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war.”

At American bases in Kuwait, Army and Marine personnel both had reason to jump into their chemical and biological protective gear in the early hours of the conflict.

An Iraqi Scud launch was detected about 12:30 p.m. local time, with the projected impact point only 6 miles from where the Army’s 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment was positioned. Staff at 3rd Infantry Division headquarters soon sent out the order to go to MOPP-4, the military acronym for Mission Oriented Protective Posture 4, meaning troops are to don full protective gear.

As soldiers ripped their gas masks from the green bags riding on their hips and hurriedly pulled them airtight across their faces, Staff Sgt. Rodney Trotter, the daytime non-commissioned officer in charge in the squadron’s tactical operations center, let out three blasts burst from an air horn —the signal for a possible nuclear, biological or chemical attack.

“Put your s--- on, sir!” one soldier shouted to a reporter as he and others pulled the baggy, awkward charcoal-lined protective trousers and jacket on, before donning their rubber overboots and inner and outer gloves. Two soldiers were so eager to get their masks on that they broke their head harnesses, according to Capt. James Harwell, the squadron’s chemical officer, who added that one of his NCOs came to their aid and had the harnesses fixed within three minutes.

The troops later learned that a Patriot missile intercepted the Scud, and the all-clear was sent out at about 1:15 p.m.

Meanwhile, during the same timeframe, a second Iraqi-launched Scud reportedly was fired at Kuwait City, sparking an alarm at Camp New York that had soldiers scrambling into their protective gear. Ultimately, Patriot missiles reportedly intercepted this incoming Scud as well.

Spec. Keith Respondek, a 26-year-old from Eldorado, Ill., was doing his laundry when he heard the alarm. “I was out back washing clothes by hand,” he said. “There were two guys sitting behind me and they said ‘What’s that?’ ” he recalled. “By that time, I had my mask on.”

Respondek, a personnel specialist with Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), said he thought it was a drill until after the all clear was given at 1:13 p.m.

“I have never experienced a live drill,” he said, while guarding one of the camp’s gates. “It’s time to do what we came here to do. No more drills. It’s time for action.”

The same Scud alerts had dozens of Marines at an airbase in Kuwait rushing from their tents and sprinting for the nearest bunker, some in their underwear, others limping along in their socks and chemical protective boots as they also went to MOPP-4.

Marines took the alarm seriously, but it didn’t prevent them from inserting some levity into the situation.

“I was about to protest this war before this happened,” one Marine joked as he cinched a protective hood around his gas mask and tightened his flack jacket.

About 10 minutes later, the all-clear came and a voice on the loudspeaker announced that Marines could take off their gas masks but had to leave on their protective suits. Marines returned to their tents and began sorting through their gear. As much as many here are prepared for almost anything, many realized the extent to which their suits, masks, flak jackets and helmets were not as readily available as they should be. One Marine had had to open his suit from the vacuum-sealed pack it came in.

As Marines sighed relief, the alarm sounded again and Marines again huddled in bunkers. Inside the bunker, as they again put their jackets back on and adjusted their helmets, one Marine passed gas loudly and everyone laughed.

“This gas mask should be good for something,” another one joked.

What had felt both like a drill and the real thing nevertheless put Marines in a posture here they had yet to experience.

“I think everyone will be a lot tighter from now on,” a pilot said.

At sea, the second Persian Gulf War began for the Navy at about 5:00 a.m. local time when two cruisers, two destroyers and two attack submarines launched “over 40” Tomahawks “in response to a very limited window of opportunity for some significant military targets,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Brown, spokesman for the Kitty Hawk Battle Group. Brown said the missiles were fired at “more than two military targets in the vicinity of Baghdad.”

On the Bunker Hill, 13 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched over a half-hour period on a gray, foggy morning. The Cowpens, a guided missile cruiser currently escorting the carrier Kitty Hawk in the Northern Persian Gulf, fired “over 10” missiles in the strike, shooting their first Tomahawk’s within 35 minutes the order to fire, a spokesman said.

The launch took place 75 minutes after the expiration of the 48-hour deadline Bush issued demanding that Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq or face a U.S.-led military strike aimed at deposing Saddam and ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

On the Bunker Hill, the missiles, fired mostly in pairs, shot out of the fore and aft vertical missile launchers and straight up into the air with a roar and the whoosh of burning rocket motors. The missiles then curled toward the north, the fading roar accentuated by a distant “popping” sound made as their boosters fell off into the Gulf and the missiles shifted into cruise mode before disappearing from sight.

The first two missiles were launched in near-total darkness, lightened only by a heavily veiled, nearly full moon. As the Bunker Hill rapidly repositioned for the next launches, daybreak approached, and observers could see the black plume of smoke that trailed behind the white-hot blast of the missiles on the subsequent 11 launches.

After the missiles were launched, spotters on the port bridge wing called out, “Happy trails forward!” or “Happy trails aft!” to inform the bridge and, subsequently, the combat information center down below, that the missiles had in fact safely left the tubes.

Members of the crew not involved in the missions gathered on the ship’s O-3 level, amidships, to watch the launches. Many carried digital video cameras. But while the mood seemed positive, it was subdued; there was no cheering.

Asked if the launches had gone well, commanding officer Capt. Faris Farwell, walking from the combat information center where he’d been working during the strikes up to the ship’s bridge, replied, “Just like it was supposed to, right?”

Other Tomahawks were launched by the destroyers Donald Cook and Milius and from the attack submarines Montpelier and Cheyenne.

At an airbase near Iraq, where media have been allowed access on condition they not name the base or its host nation, the mission officially shifted from monitoring the southern no-fly zone to those of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Air Force Col. Tom Jones, commander of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, told reporters Thursday.

A handful of F-16 Falcon planes attacked targets similar to those targeted for years as part of Operation Southern Watch: communications nodes and other elements of the Iraqi regime’s communications network, Col. Cesar Rodriguez, said Thursday. Both officers stressed that an anticipated massive air attack on Iraq, expected for months as the opening move in a U.S. invasion, had not yet been launched.

The Air Force’s F-16 and A-10 squadrons here actually launched far fewer sorties than the average day during the last few months of southern no-fly zone missions, Rodriguez said.

“TV is reporting that the war has started — well, we’ve been getting shot at every day since we got here,” he said.