NEW YORK, June 13: The US launched many more unsuccessful air strikes to kill Iraqi leaders in early days of war last year which caused significant Iraqi civilian casualties, said the New York Times quoting senior military and intelligence officials.

In an exclusive report, the Times says "only a few of the 50 air strikes have been described in public." "All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence," current and former government officials were quoted by the paper as saying.

The broad scope of the campaign and its failures, along with the civilian casualties, have not been acknowledged by the Bush administration. In essence the claims of the success of the so-called air- campaign of "shock and awe" were not as accurate nor successful in achieving their objectives, the report implies.

The strikes, carried out against so-called high-value targets during a one-month period that began on March 19, 2003, used precision-guided munitions against at least 13 Iraqi leaders, including Gen. Izzat Ibrahim, Iraq's No 2 official, the officials told the newspaper.

The poor record in the strikes has raised questions about the intelligence they were based on, including whether that intelligence reflected deception on the part of Iraqis, the officials told the paper.