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Worrywarts Wring Hands over Iraqi Air Force
Edited for length:No Iraqi warplane has taken off in the face of total American and British air superiority during the 2-week-old war, leading some U.S. generals and analysts to wonder whether they are being readied for a desperate wave of terror attacks. The experts say that if the Iraqis try to fly they are likely to be destroyed, perhaps before they even get into the air. But if a suicide mission got through U.S. defenses, the attack's psychological damage could outweigh any physical casualties. Oh no! We're doomed, doomed I tell you! "We're concerned about any possible use of an airplane to conduct terror," Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar this past weekend. "But . . . I am absolutely 100 percent comfortable that the air component commander has a number of airmen up there who would be ecstatic if one of the Iraqis tried to fly." 1 Kill = 100 Promontion Points At Central Command on Monday, Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks at Central Command was asked why the Iraqis haven't flown so far. "It's as simple as if they fly, they die. . . . If we find them, we'll destroy them. We've destroyed aircraft in cemeteries or near cemeteries. We've destroyed aircraft outside of protected areas. We've destroyed aircraft on the ground," he said. "We've destroyed them in the rain, we've destroyed them on a train" Before the war began, the Iraqi air force had 316 combat aircraft, according to Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the West's leading scholars on the Iraqi military. But only 50 to 60 percent were usable, he said. It isn't clear how many Iraqi planes have been destroyed in the waves of coalition air strikes over the past two weeks. Most of the aircraft, all of the airfields if the satellite photos are correct. Cordesman estimates that Iraqi pilots get 20 hours of flying time a year, less than what Americans get in a slow month. "One alternative is the idea that they are being reserved for one last spasm of near-suicide attacks -- possibly with weapons of mass destruction -- for the battle of Baghdad. No evidence, and pure speculation, but possible," he added. Speculation, and trying like hell to find something to worry about. Posted by: Steve 2003-04-03 |
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