Read the OP. The OP, and it’s cite specifically states that the fragment was from a “cruise missle”, and that they matched the number from the Raytheon site. Other dudes went to the Raytheon site- and this simply cannot be done. There are numbers- they are likely US weapon numbers, and Raytheon numbers- but they can NOT be tracked to a 'cruise missle"- or anything specific in the way of munitions in fact. So, the very first line is a lie. First words out- a lie. Thus- Fisk IS lying.
Now, when he starts out with such a big whopper, why should we beleive him when he states he found the fragment there? Why wouldn’t the Iraqi military have found such a fragment, and trumpeted it as “proof”? Either they overlooked it, or they planted it- figuring Fisk would find it- sounds so much better coming from him than them, dontchaknow.
Or some stupid journalist who can’t tell a cruise missile from a regular bomb from a HARM from a AA missile just confused the terminology. Something that goes boom and people die from. Something that left metal pieces. Hey, found a metal piece with markings on it. Hmm, markings are like the ones on US munitions. Cruise missiles are munitions and they’ve been firing a lot of them recently. Time to write a story!
Facts right, terminology wrong. Still US munitions. As for it being the target? I certainly don’t believe a marketplace was targeted, but that doesn’t bring the people back from the dead or restore the livelihood of merchants whose shops were destroyed.
If Iraq intended to have any credibility in this matter, they should long ago have brought in a third (and unbiased) party to collect blast residue from the market place crater. It is highly unlikely that Iraq uses the same explosive compounds we do. Simple chemical analysis would have revealed much information about the source and origin of the bomb. That said, way too much time has elapsed for any sort of valid or credible collection of evidence to be made. Waaaay too many opportunities for tampering. That Iraq, with all of its scientists, was unable to select such a plausible method of attribution suggests they had no intention of correctly proving where the missle came from.
From the evidence present I think it is pretty clear that this was a stray US missile/bomb/Explody thing. It went off target accidentally, hit a marker, killed 60 people and injured about 300 odd.
The point is WHY does the US not acknowledge these accidents straight away, or as soon as possible. At the moment we have the Iraqis saying that the missile was American, the Americans saying (not very convincingly) that it’s POSSIBLE that it was an Iraqi AA missile or a deliberate attempt to implicate the US (this last one may just be the press talking).
I don’t trust the Iraqi press (read: government) one bit, but what I would like to be able to do is trust the US Military. Surely they (US) are able to track these things or do a bit of after the fact investigating and work out if it was theirs or not. But it seems that all we constantly hear are denials and rumours exonerating the US.
I realise that propaganda in wartime is important, but I see examples like this as hurting the US Military rather than helping it. Even though they are not outright lying about this (everything is to be confirmed, possible, suspected) when the truth comes out it really damages their credibility. It just breeds mistrust.
Mistakes like this are bound to happen in war, it is expected, what the US needs to do is start being more honest in its reporting of the facts and stop trying to be squeaky clean all the time. That is if it is serious in being a role model for democracy and freedom as we are constantly hearing.
Amen. Especially if there are misfire percentage reports of up to 10%, and the arguments produced what else it could have been are the same ones that had to be backpedaled from in the last war. One of my first thoughts hearing of ‘shock and awe’ was: Um, doesn’t an x-fold increase of fired ammunition also increase the number of misses in an equal fashion? Do they seriously think they’re going to convince the locals of their goodwill that way?
{Quote}But investigations by The Independent show that the missile _ thought to be either a Harm (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile) device, or a Paveway laser-guided bomb _ was sold by Raytheon to the procurement arm of the US Navy. The American military has confirmed that a navy EA-6B “Prowler” jet, based on the USS Kittyhawk, was in action over the Iraqi capital on Friday and fired at least one Harm missile to protect two American fighters from a surface-to-air missile battery.
<snip>
Despite its manufacturer’s claims, it also has a record of unreliability when fired at a target which “disappears” if, as the Iraqi forces do, the target’s operators switch their radar signal rapidly on and off. Nick Cook, of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “The problem with Harms is that they can be seduced away from their targets by any sort of curious transmission. They are meant to have corrected that but there have been problems.” During the Kosovo conflict four years ago, a farmer and his daughter were badly injured when a missile exploded in their village. A shard of the casing was found near by with a reference very similar to that found in Baghdad: “30003 704AS4829 MFP 96214.” {/quote}
I guess this was an awful accident waiting to happen. Surprised there have not been more really.
Nonsense. The evil bastards must have placed it there from another site and then pursuaded all the grieving, angry victims to not see them sanitising the site and placing the evidence.
Either that or the much vaunted, “we’ll admit errors if we make them” Allied statements, has an “if we get caught” caveat.
Accidents bloody happen, it does no good the UK/US pretending they don’t.
It’s no use admitting now that missiles with known problems which could lead to accidents were fired, the damage is done to credibility.
We know accidents will happen, we know that sometimes it might be necessary to engage targets placed in civilian areas.
How can we expect to be believed in the Middle East if/when there is a faked atrocity if we aren’t more open about these things and admit the possibility of errors?
Note however, that the article does not admit or retract it’s earlier claim that the serial number was from a “US Cruise Missle”.
The fragment # is convincing that it is from a HARM. The blast pattern also could be a HARM, although not a “cruise missle” or “bunker buster” (which were also “eye witness” claims). So- yes, the missle that hit could have been a HARM- which was fired at a legitimate Iraqi Military target. If Iraq puts legit military targets in or around their people, their people are going to get killed. That’s Saddams fault, not the USA’s.
The fragment could also have been planted, of course. But finally, after THREE tries, the pro-Iraqi bunch have finally come up with a claim which is not false on it’s face. Of course, they read the rebuttals of their wild-assed claims too, so maybe they finally just decided to get the lie right.
Or, indeed- the US could have fired at a legit Military target, and civilans got hurt. That is a tragedy, yes, but not a “atrocity” or a “war crime”- or if it is a “war crime”, it is just another to hang Saddam on.
Look dude. I experienced the B-2 coming in at half past noon. thats as broad a daylight as you can get on a sunny Los Angeles day. When this thing is at a 90 degree orientation from you, you dont hear a thing to indicate aircraft. I heard cars passing by a block away not some giant black bomber above me. This thing is so thin, I tell you that looking at it straight on from the front or behind, that you hardly see it. On its second pass knowing where it was coming from, it took great effort to see this thing coming.
and as far as evidentiary standards, you havent explained how a 1,000 pound warhead creates such a small crater.
Nor have I posited that the munitions that hit the marketplace bore a 1000 pound warhead. Nor have I said they heard a stealth plane coming in on approach(the situation you describe as being noiseless).
All I’ve said is that evidence seems to indicate US munitions and it is possible to hear, and see, stealth aircraft(hell, ANY aircraft) at some point in a bombing run. This is physics. The airplane is making noise, it may be traveling fast enough that it arrives at the same time, or very shortly after, the soundwave front(or even before, but I don’t believe they make supersonic bombing runs), but the soundwave front IS there. Given the large number of eyes and ears present in the market at the time I find it entirely possible that even a stealth aircraft would have been seen as well as heard.
Regardless I’m tired of defending against this hijack.
Point 1. It hasn’t been established that ONLY stealth aircraft were in the skies over Bhagdad at the time the market was destroyed, so the eyewitness evidence of the citizens in the marketplace about what they saw and heard doesn’t have to jive with the sights/sounds of stealth aircraft(in fact the coalition forces have stated that a EA-6B “Prowler” was in the area). Moreover, they don’t have to jive with YOUR experiences of the sights/sounds of stealth aircraft. There are tons of factors in the equation. Flight speed, altitude, angle of attack, etc. etc. It is entirely possible that YOUR experience with a flyover by a stealth craft was simply not representative. To continue to try to deny eyewitness accounts based upon YOUR impressions of the type of aircraft you PRESUME to have been the types in the area at the time is simply ludicrous.
Point 2. It doesn’t freaking matter what the type of munitions(cruise missile, HARM, bomb, whatever) or the size of the payload was. The point is that there is evidence of the weapon that destroyed the marketplace being US munitions.
DrDeth. I am pro-Iraqi in the sense that I value their lives as much as I value any, and every, human life. If that somehow implies to you that I wish failure on the mission of the Coalition, then this is an implication of your own devising and I simply don’t care to rebut it. What I find annoying is this continual effort on the part of yourself and others to try to throw out the entire affair because of a single flaw in a hypothetical explanation(“not a cruise missile, so it wasn’t coalition”; “stealth bombers are hard to see and hear so it can’t have been the coalition”).
I am interested in finding the truth of what happened in that marketplace on that day. I will entertain ANY hypothesis and I will evaluate them as fairly as possible. I don’t expect them to be accurate in every detail on the first pass, and to discredit the entire hypothesis if a single piece is found to be false is fallacious. What pisses me off is that you, and others in this thread, seem more interested in defending against any criticism of the coalition than discovering the truth of the matter. Let us reserve judgement, of either the coalition or Iraq, until the truth is discovered. You should be AIDING in the discovery of the truth of the matter, not hampering those who are trying to discover it by dismissing their ideas out of hand when a single discrepancy is found. Help refine their ideas and help work towards uncovering the truth. To do otherwise is a loss in the fight against ignorance.
I live right downwind from Whiteman Airforce base (home of the B-2 bomber) and I can tell you firsthand that they are very far from quiet.
Any time of day or night, I can easily hear them flying by at about 5,000 feet. And at night, they have two HUGE lights on each wing that makes them look like an 18-Wheel Truck from the front.
I can be in the middle of a movie (home theatre)…and hear one of them flying by while thousands of feet up in the air. Sure, you might not hear one zipping along at 30,000 feet, but they are loud…like other planes. And big too.
It makes me wonder if people want them to be “stealthy” and thus completely quiet.
Dude. The OP Title is “Cruise missile hit the Iraqi market” A cruise missile carries a 1000 lb warhead or cluster bombs. A thing that is 18 feet long gong that fast does not make a crater that small and not have more peices lying around.
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Regardless I’m tired of defending against this hijack. **
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ok I’ll drop it.
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Point 2. It doesn’t freaking matter what the type of munitions(cruise missile, HARM, bomb, whatever) or the size of the payload was. The point is that there is evidence of the weapon that destroyed the marketplace being US munitions. **
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There is evidence of a numbering system that may be american. It could be also french, German or british. Mr Fisk did not establish that it was from Raytheon.
Excellent suggestion. Lets wait till the Marines get there.
I didn’t post the OP. I have said several times in this thread that I’m not putting forth any particular type of munitions(although evidence cited by others seems to indicate a HARM missile). Still, for some reason, you post the following in a direct reply to me
To which I replied “Nor have I posited that the munitions that hit the marketplace bore a 1000 pound warhead.” Your reading comprehension skills aren’t helping your position.
No, Mr. Fisk did not establish that it was from Raytheon. Independent investigation, repeated by myself, established that the numbers, reported as being on the fragment by Mr. Fisk, correspond with the cage code assigned to munitions manufactured by Raytheon in McKinney, TX. Now you can say these numbers aren’t really a cage code, and that they could be French(who aren’t providing munitions or troops), German(see French) or British(who aren’t providing much in the way of air support compared to US contributions) and just HAPPEN to co-incide with a string of letters that has the same format as US munitions cage codes(Note that you’d not only have to prove it wasn’t American munitions, you’d have to prove it was Iraqi to absolve the Coalition forces). Not only that, but they are a VALID cage code for a MAJOR US munitions supplier. At this point I think you’ve got to pull your head out soon or you’ll suffocate.
Maybe we’ll have to. In the meantime the investigations into the info we DO have access to can continue. If compelling evidence arises, even if the marines aren’t there yet, I’ll feel free to make my assertions that US misfires caused Iraqi civilian casualties and feel confident in the truth of the statement. I’m fairly close now based upon evidence of the blast pattern being consistent with a HARM, admission that a plane was in the area at the time and was firing HARMs, evidence showing a tendancy for HARMs to go astray, and the evidence of the fragment’s identifying marks.
And you see, so are we. Remember, that you’re not the only dude posting in this thread- things that may appear to you to be a reply to YOU may be a reply to others. My comment about “pro-iraqi” was aimed at the news reporter, not you.
True, YOU have not made those statements per se- but others have, including the OP and his cite.
Nor is this a hijack in any way. The question of whther or not you’d hear a B2 stealth bomber is very real if there are claims that: A- It was a “cruise missle”, and B. “they heard the aircraft it was launched from”. Sure, you can hear a B2, in fact right here we have an "ear witness: that states they are fairly noisy if you are nearby when they take off & land. But NOT FROM THE RANGE AT WHICH IT WOULD LAUNCH A CRUISE MISSLE. So it wasn’t a B2, as claimed - not by you, but by some
The question as to the size of the crater, and the size of the ordinance also is important, as there have been claims- including the OP and his cite, that it was a “cruise missle”. Again, not by you. Not was it a B52 and “cluster bombs” as claimed in the IMHO thread on this subject.
And these weren’t “hypotheticals” in a large part. The cite did not say “COULD” have been a “cruise missle”. Nope, they stated clearly that it WAS a US Cruise missle- which it wasn’t.
The thing is- they (not you) have come up with charges & hypothesis- and until now, not one has met the facts. They have all been provably WRONG. But now, after being refuted & rebuted, they have finally come up with a story which is a “maybe”. Note the cite never admits it’s earlier versions of “the TRUTH” were incorrect & WRONG. And it wasn’t a single flaw, they had error after error.
So after being wrong & flat out lying several times- why SHOULD we beleive the one factoid we can’t disprove on it’s face- that that fragment actually came from the ordinance that caused that explosion? It is just as likely- in fact MORE likely given the unreliable & biased nature of the source, that he either didn’t find that fragment there, or that the fragment was planted. Or heck, there might not even BE a fragment, he could have just looked those numbers up on the Raytheon site or something.
But since the Coalition has made every effort to reduce the number of civilian casualties (and has not always succeeded, granted), and Saddam has made an equal effort to increase that number- who holds the moral high ground? SH is placing his own people in harm just to win points in the Propaganda war. And- that my freind is far more evil that any mistaken deaths caused by errant Coalition ordinance.
And this proves…? Does it prove that there IS a fragment? That Fisk found the fragment there? That the fragment came from the ordinance that caused the explosion? Very little, no, nope, nyet.
True, finally AT LAST Fisk & others have come up with a explanation for the explosion that is not false on its face. About time, they have had enough tries.
First they cried “Wolf” -and no wolf (that paw print does NOT look like a wolf). Again they cried “wolf”, and no wolf (No sheep is missing). And again (If a wolf killed the sheep, ther’d be blood). But finally, they can point to a footprint that looks a great deal like a wolf’s, some blood & a missing sheep. This would be pretty solid until we point to the “boy” who had been complaining about how hungry he was, who now has grease stains on his shirt, a fat stomach, and the smell of BBQ in the air. Sure, the signs now COULD be a “wolf”- but my doubts are there, none the less.