Can somebody explain this to me? I’ve read several stories like this over the last year or so. Iraq shoots down an unmanned Predator drone, the military shrugs its shoulders, says this is business as usual. Why is this not more of a big deal? Is there no U.N. resolution covering this? Iraq shoots down a U.S. aircraft (unmanned, sure, but still our aircraft), and according to this story, routinely fires on all our aircraft in their airspace. Is it because our reconnaissance activities are of questionable legality in the first place, so we have to look the other way when they shoot us down? And if what we’re doing is questionable, why isn’t the rest of the world protesting it?
What exactly do you mean by ``legal’’? I’d argue that military manoeuvers are not governed by civil or criminal law, where destroying property belonging to others is bad, but by military law (if by anything), where wanton torture or genocide are bad. Shooting down unmanned aircraft is, in the context of a war, pretty benign stuff. Although for what it’s worth, there is a sizeable fraction (this off the cuff and with nothing concrete to back it up, just the general tone of non-US news coverage) of the rest of the world that is protesting (or at least for from convinced by) what y’all are doing…
Well, we do shoot back, and drop bombs on 'em, and stuff like that. And considering that we’re presently teetering on the brink of war with Iraq, our military (or political leadership) may not feel like making much of a fuss over this one. Today.
It’s an unmanned drone that was shot down. Technically, it’s a violation of various UN resolutions, but nobody’s going to get their panties in a bunch because it didn’t result in the death of a US pilot. That’s one of the reasons why folks think the US should stay out of Iraq, because we have all these hi-tech gadgets and that we’re unfairly picking on a backwater nation. Nevermind that some “backwater” nations have managed to give the US a bloody nose a time or two (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Serbia, to name but a few.), and that all our hi-tech goodies don’t mean squat if the bad guy get’s a nuke. Had the Iraqi’s managed to down a manned plane (which, if we didn’t keep bombing their air defense systems, they’d certainly manage to do sooner or later), you can bet the US Gov’t would be pointing to it and saying, “See! See!”
To think of it another way, what Iraq did was the equivilant of speeding. Not too many people get upset about that.
I have a feeling this will be moved to GD, but the fact is, the Predator was flying over Iraqi airspace on a spy mission, and AFAIK, such an act IS of dubious legality no matter where it occurs. After all, the US never went to war over shootdowns of manned spyplanes by the Soviet Union, not did we take military action against China when a fighters sent up to harass an Orion spyplane (IIRC in neutral airspace) collided with the Orion.
US policy appears to be to make punitive strikes on Iraqi air defence installations when the Iraqis fire on manned aircraft, but to let it slide if a UAV is involved. In the former case, the lives of US personnel are put at risk; in the latter case I’m presuming that the military considers the damage to public relations from putting civilian lives at risk in a punitive strike over an unmanned craft to outweigh the potential benefits of the strike.
As far as the rest of the world not protesting it, many countries use unmanned air vehicles for intelligence-gathering, and I presume they wish to maintain the moral authority to c0ontinue doing so.
I’ll leave it to others with greater knowledge of US policy on intelligence overflights to comment further.
*Iraqi air defences have fired on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq almost 500 times in 2002, officials said. American and British aircraft have come under attack on 32 days since Nov. 8, when the United Nations’ Security Council agreed on a new weapons’ inspection regime for Iraq. *
What was unusual was that Iraqi Jets did it … They crossed into the Southern No-Fly and fired and scooted back. Remember Iraq has the Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones, but they can operate planes over the vast middle of the country.
When Iraq fires there is always some retaliation & there will be this time – expect in the next day or so reports of US and British war planes bombing a Surface to Air missile site or radar site.
Kinda sorta prolly not. UN Security Council Resolution 688, passed in 1991, said stop attacking your people. Iraq did not stop. First the US, then a couple more countries (UK, France, Russia) joined up and started patrolling to enforce UNSCR 688, but they were not doing this with explicit authorization from the UN. The first air-to-air engagement was Dec 92, with the loss of the Iraqi MiG. Then the SAM sites started firing, and getting bombed, then illuminating radars, and getting bombed, and anti-aircraft guns would fire, and then get bombed. Kinda monotonous, in a sick sorta way. Then it slacked off and all was better. But in 1994 Saddam got mouthy, started moving troops toward Kuwait again, then we hit him again, harder this time. THEN we got UNSCR 949, which stated Iraq could not have forces below the 32nd Parallel, which made the patrols a bit more “legal”, in that it was UN mandated, not just a couple of countries. The Brits and US did some more serious bombing again in late 1998 after Iraq started stonewalling the UN Weapons Inspectors, then France backed out of the air operations, the wussies.
So The UN Security Council has said that we can patrol to ensure they are not sending forces south again, but Iraq did not explicitly agree to it. There is also a Northern No Fly Zone, but it has not had quite the excitement that they have in the South.
Here is a decent summary (Readers Digest version) of the various UN Resolutions concerning Iraq.
Uhm, although we did not take explicit military action against China we did pull in a few aircraft carrier groups. Yeah, that’ll scare the sh!t out of any country. There’s enough ordinance on ONE carrier to screw a nation over, now, 2 or 3… hmm…
Besides, it was the fact that China BOARDED the plane that was the issue. If they had gotten ahold of any communications or encryption equipment then not only would WE, the US be screwed, so would all UN allies. OOps.
Some people say that this is a sign that the war actually has started, but nobody wants to admit it. They say that we are already softening up Iraq with air attacks.
But there are “only” 80 aircraft on a carrier, the most effective means of delivering that ordnance, and not all of the planes carry bombs. China has more attack aircraft in their little finger. It would be bad ju-ju to attack with even three carrier battle groups in their backyard. Good way to lose three carrier battle groups.
Plus aren’t they the ones who’re supposedly building those super-secret super-silent mini-subs that’ve forced us to try building a sonar sytem capable of killing every whale whale within a 200 mile radius /
Somewhat off topic, but a few B-2 bombers are far more threatening than a carrier. Each can deliver 40,000 lbs of bombs anywhere in the world without being detected (this might be debateable).
A carrier strike requires ECM planes, refueling plans, Search and Rescue, Fighter Escort and Bomber/multipurpose planes. A pair of B-2 bombers can deliver the equivelent of a carrier group within 24 hours anywhere in the world.
And we have at least 21 of them. It’s like having 10-11 aircraft carriers that can be deployed anywhere in the world within 24 hours while risking only 2 human lives.
A B-2 can’t fulfil the range of missions a carrier air wing can, and is almost as intensive in its support needs. Ten CVNs can mass several hundred aircraft; each B-2 needs only one lucky hit from a SAM or an AAA position firing blind and you can write it off completely.
then thoese people are misled. This has been going on almost since the end of the gulf war.
Seems to me that once Iraq has voilated the treaty in anyway (including kicking out the UN inspectors years ago) we should revert to the state before the treaty which is war.
Unclebill just listed some of our repsonses tot he iraqies acts of war (leaving out the part that they are trying to shoot down our planes on a regular basis).