Saddam's Stingers unaccounted for (Baghdad and other airports unsafe)

[papau]

http://www.iht.com/articles/112753.html

Saddam's Stingers unaccounted for Raymond Bonner/NYT Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Hundreds missing, posing airport risk

BAGHDAD The United States military has been unable to find hundreds of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that were part of the arsenal of Saddam Hussein, compounding the security risks for airports and airlines in Iraq and around the world.<snip>
.
The U.S. military is pressing the search for the missiles, offering a reward of $500 for each one. The Pentagon has been surprised by the numbers of the weapons, mostly Russian-made SA-7's, that Iraqis have turned in. Virtually every day, Iraqis are walking up to U.S. military posts to turn in missiles and sometimes they have led Americans to small caches. All together, 317 shoulder-fired missiles have been handed over since May 1, according to unclassified U.S. military figures. The military has paid out just over $100,000 in rewards, a senior coalition official said.<snip>

The missiles believed to be available on the world black market include American-made Stingers - of which the CIA gave nearly 1,000 to fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's. In an incident that has not been made public, two Stingers were found on a North Korean ship that was smuggling drugs into Japan in December 2000, according to American officials. The ship was sunk in a shootout with the Japanese Coast Guard.<snip>

Globally, there are thought to be 100,000 such weapons and, in the last 15 years, more than 50,000 have been sold to third world governments, according to Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Jane's Terrorism Intelligence Center reported in August that at least 30 insurgent and terrorist groups possess shoulder-fired missiles. American forces found SA-7s in Al Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan.<snip>
.

[arcane1]

1. um, were Stingers part of the list of banned weapons?

:shrug:

that's what I thought...

[htuttle]

11. No, Stingers are tiny

You shoot them from your shoulder. They weren't banned. The missles that were banned were all big things with ranges over 150km (or somewhere around there).

Iraq was allowed to have an army. It was only prohibited by the UN from having certain specific weapons (or weapons abilities).

[leanings]

2. Too bad Iraq

never had Stingers. Nice attention to detail, Mr. Bonner.

[papau]

5. available on the world black market - how do we know never in Iraq?

granted it has been SA-7's so far and only SA-7's that have been fired at Baghdad airport -

but who is to say "none"

and the 2 going into Japan that we caught on the ship - the type was never mentioned!

And these folks fly to Bangkok next month - should be interesting.

[leanings]

7. The title of the article

references "Saddam's Stingers". One would infer that means more than a couple of missiles bought on the black market. One would also infer that there is some evidence to indicate that Iraq possessed two or more Stingers. Nothing of the sort is indicated in the article.

Stingers were never sold to Iraq.

[DCDemo]

8. Uh..how were missles found on a ship that was sunk?

That part doens't make sense...sounds like more anti-N Korea agitation

[leanings]

13. Navy divers.

Not at all unrealistic.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. they did not stop the looting of nuclear material

either, so why should we be surprised

[Maine-i-acs]

4. Another problem of OUR making.

Stingers came from the good ole USA. We are arming the world, still. So what if a few of those arms get smuggled around the world?

We armed Saddam, we armed the Mujahedin. Nobody to blame but ourselves if those weapons get pointed back at us.

Was this release of information calculated to perpetuate a little more fear in the general populace so they'll forget Traitorgate?

[leanings]

6. We armed the Muj

to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Stingers may have made the difference. Now, which parties in the Muj recieved the CIA support is another matter, but the concept of supporting the Muj in general was sound.

A lot gets tossed around about the US "arming" Saddam. Now from what I understand, there were some loans that went to Iraq in order to buy arms during the Iran-Iraq War. (Any links on the specifics of this would be appreciated.) But I'm not aware of a single American-made weapons system used by the Iraqis, from pistols to bombers. Anybody? I'm just curious as I hear this statement quite a bit.

[papau]

9. Wrong - but you must follow the money!

Seems we did the arming of Saddam via CIA fake companies - not that this refers to the National Security loss from the Bush "get Wilson" leak -

In one case we used a "loan" to Saddam that was paid to a South American company (the CIA front) that then bought the items Saddam needed.

In this particular case, the items were specially made/modified copters that were then used to spray Saddams bad citizen folks with poison gas - which we also supplied.

Which makes the Bush line "He used poison gas on his own people" drip with irony - in my opinion!

:-)

[leanings]

12. Links?

I've heard this, please point out the sources. Both the CIA fronts and the chem weapons we provided. I don't disbelieve you, I'd just like to see it.

I still find it a bit disengenous to say we "armed" him. The Soviets, French, Germans, and South Africans sold him all his weapons systems; they "armed" him. Maybe we were an "arms enabler".

[bushisanidiot]

10. Rummy's Probably Trying to Get "Made In The USA" Taken Off Of Them

probably just another deal he had with Saddam complete with handshake to seal it.

Idiot.

[Noordam]

14. The Afghanistan Stingers are DOA...

Stingers has a shelf live because of a special battery in them. That why you always here of SA-7s being used.