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| Iraq |
| U.S. Weapons Teams Find Iraqi Warplanes Buried in Desert |
| 2003-08-01 |
| Some of Iraqi’s missing air force has turned up down below. Search teams, some hunting for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (search), found dozens of fighter jets from Iraq’s air force buried beneath the sands, U.S. officials say. At least one Cold War-era MiG-25 interceptor was found when searchers saw the tops of its twin tail fins poking up from the sands, said one Pentagon official familiar with the hunt. He said search teams have found several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad (search). Iraq’s air squadrons were a no-show during the war, and U.S. military officials supposed their pilots stayed grounded because they believed they were overmatched by American and British air power. |
| Posted by:Patrick Phillips |
| #10 NMM asked a reasonable question (Ethyl! The pills!), so to answer: yes, the top line MiGs bugged out to Iran in 1991. The pilots were detained and repatriated to Iraq, but the fighters remained property of the IRI. Funny how some liberals would remember that, and then put it past the Baathists to transfer their WMD to Syria... |
| Posted by: Brian 2003-8-1 1:06:54 PM |
| #9 Hey NMM, embarassing or what? Iraq's weapon of mass disruction turns out to be.....sand. |
| Posted by: john 2003-8-1 11:59:59 AM |
| #8 How many WMD's could be hidden in the same amount of space under featurless sand? |
| Posted by: Rutherford 2003-8-1 10:54:27 AM |
| #7 That's a hell of a lot of Saran Wrap and duct tape to cover up a Mig-25. I imagine their burying of planes is proof positive how effective our bombs were at destroying the hardened shelters. |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-8-1 9:54:24 AM |
| #6 I'm not sure whether they'd be scrap metal or not now -- it depends on whether or not they protected the rotating parts from infiltration by sand. Properly prepared, I don't expect being buried under sand would be especially damaging... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-8-1 9:42:51 AM |
| #5 Didn't Iraq send a lot of their jets to Iran before Gulf War I? |
| Posted by: Not Mike Moore 2003-8-1 9:25:54 AM |
| #4 First, the word sand really seems to give problems. Second, the motto of the Iraqi Air Force: First Not to Fly |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-8-1 8:33:14 AM |
| #3 The sadns around the bases in Soddi are supposedly littered with aircraft, too, from crashes. Were these working planes or the wrecks? |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-8-1 8:31:51 AM |
| #2 Buried in the sanc. They are scrap metal now. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-8-1 7:20:11 AM |
| #1 Gives whole new meaning to the term grounded. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-8-1 7:06:03 AM |