• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Shots in the Dark

Saddam Wants to Down a U.S. Jet; Not Likely, Experts Say

First of Two Parts
By David Ruppe
ABCNEWS.com
March 12 — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wants to shoot down an American fighter jet, and he’s going to a lot of trouble to do it.
    Almost daily since late December, Iraqi fighter aircraft have dangerously dipped in and out of the northern and southern “no-fly” zones over Iraq, taunting U.S. and British aircraft to chase them into the range of anti-aircraft weaponry.
     Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery batteries and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites have regularly targeted the coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones. In response, Western aircraft have launched devastating retaliatory raids, destroying as much as 20 percent of Iraq’s air defense capabilities as well as other military assets. The Iraqi president has reportedly offered a cash reward to any of his air-defense troops who shoot down a U.S. aircraft or capture an American pilot.
     Yet, so far, no U.S. plane has been lost and, according to U.S. military analysts, the chances are small that anyone will collect on Saddam’s bounty.

Engine Failure More Likely
“There’s a greater chance that a plane will crash from engine failure than one getting shot down,” says Michael Eisenstadt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Though hope springs eternal and they could get lucky.”
     “It’s not like the sky is erupting in flames,” says an Air Force pilot who has flown SAM-killing missions over northern and southern Iraq and asked not to be named. “We’re basically responding to small border incursions, radar illuminations, and some anti-aircraft artillery fire.”
     U.S. pilots have a number of things going for them, including superior technology and training, a vast intelligence network, and a well-tested knowledge of Iraqi weapons capabilities, notes John Pike, a military analyst with the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists.
     The probability Iraqi forces can knock a U.S. plane down is “low, but not zero,” he says. “It’s no one thing that is the source of American preponderance, but the combination of all of those.”
     One important advantage is the superiority of the U.S. aircraft. The well-equipped F-15 and F-16 fighters flown by the Air Force and F/A-18 and F-14 fighters flown by the Navy, packed with advanced weapons, radars and jamming systems, simply outclass the aging Soviet-era MiGs and Sukhois flown by the Iraqis.
     In one notable instance, on Jan. 5, eight Iraqi fighters challenged and then fled U.S. aircraft in the southern no-fly zone. One Iraqi aircraft crashed. Since then, Saddam’s air arm has shown reluctance to take on its better-prepared foes.
     And they should. American aircraft also have the distinct advantage of air-to-air missiles known as AMRAAMs that allow them to strike aircraft at distances beyond the horizon. Iraq has no such weapon.

Artillery No Match
Another advantage U.S. pilots have is that they’ve known since early in the 1991 Gulf War how high Iraqi anti-aircraft guns can shoot. “Since then, we’ve had the very annoying habit of flying a little higher than that,” says Pike.
     Iraq’s SAMs can fly much higher than the artillery. But U.S. pilots can quickly and precisely target Iraqi SAM radars with high-speed anti-radiation missiles known as HARMs. Because of that, Iraqi forces have mainly used highly imprecise “visual” or “electro-optical” tracking attached to the SAM sites, which virtually guarantees coalition pilots won’t be struck by the missiles.
     “It’s a technological superiority that we enjoy that … certainly cuts down on the risk, but by no means does it cut down on all of the risk,” says Air Force Maj. Joe LaMarca, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command at Fort McDill Air Force Base in Florida. “Certainly these are still combat missions, and anything can happen on any particular day.”
     Indeed, the Iraqis have tried numerous tricks to catch coalition pilots off-guard. For instance, the Iraqis have been known to covertly transport SAMs into a no-fly zone in order to ambush coalition aircraft.
     “We see Iraqis routinely move sites and don’t exactly know were all the sites are,” says LaMarca. U.S. pilots won’t pursue Iraqi aircraft into areas where SAM sites are suspected for fear of being ambushed, he says.
     But the current Iraqi attacks do not quite approach the challenge of full-force combat. “It’s not like the guy is going at us full tilt,” notes the Air Force pilot. “When the Iraqis do put forth a concerted effort, they can be quite canny.”

Iraqis Could Get Lucky
Coalition aircraft have an outstanding record of survivability against the Iraqis. Of the approximately 175,000 sorties flown above Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, only one aircraft was lost — a French air force Mirage F-1 in June 1992. The cause: engine failure.
     Iraqis would tally an engine failure or a missile hit as a victory, says Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Middle East security issues for the Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar and an ABCNEWS analyst.
     And then, there’s always luck, says Cordesman. “If all of the Iraqi factors come together, the missiles, the radars, command and control, they could shoot down even the best U.S. pilot.”

Why does Saddam Hussein continue to challenge U.S. and British fighters? Part two of this story appears Monday, March 15 on ABCNEWS.com.

Copyright ©1999 ABC News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form. Please click here for legal restrictions and terms of use applicable to this site. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.