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11/09/2004: "The Missile Gaffe"

Let�s talk about the 4,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that turned up missing in Iraq. Our beloved repeat blog readers know that the wisdom of allowing Saddam�s arsenal to be looted has been a recurring focus. We looked at the disappearance of hundreds of tons of HDX, one pound of which destroyed a 747 over Lockerbie Scotland in one of history�s most devastating terrorist attacks. (BTW, this attack was believed to be in retaliation for US downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the missile frigate USS Vincennes.) HDX is scary enough, but stinger missiles represent an entirely different class of concern. As a West Point cadet I once witnessed the firing of such a weapon during a training exercise. They handed it to one of my lucky classmates, pulled out of the crowd and thus without any special training. Then we saw this tiny dot in the sky, a �firebee� heat target drone being towed behind a plane. It was a pretty amazing sight to see the missile zero in on the dot. The lesson was not lost on one of my classmates. Some years later, after the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he quit his job and became a mujahadeen. No kidding. He came back to the reunion with a long beard and the narrow-eyed look of someone used to ducking in the rocks. He was convinced that the partisans could prevail if they could cut Soviet aerial re-supply. He founded a think tank to lobby the Reagan administration to deliver stinger missiles to the Afghanis. The CIA was aghast at the idea of jet killers floating around third-world black markets, but eventually relented. The end result was what Andy had predicted � the Soviets pulled out, a defeat that in no small part led to the disintegration of the USSR. So should we be concerned about 4,000 of these in the hands of insurgents who recently declared featly to Al Qaeda? Well, here�s one data point: shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles caused the single largest loss for US forces in post-invasion combat operations, when firing on two helicopters on Nov 2, 2003 killed 16 soldiers and wounded 21 in Fallujah.