Quoth Brian Holtz:
> TK) I can think of at least four discrete types of Iraqi weapon
systems of
> American origin that I personally saw in 1991:
> - Thousands of M21 anti-tank mines
> - Thousands of M16 anti-personnel mines ("Bouncing Bettys")
> - Several M18 anti-personnel mines ("Claymores")
> - One F-4 Phantom combat aircraft (TK
>
> Hmm, I wonder if the F-4 was this
> <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6612789209> one.
> Nothing on the web mentions any F-4s in the Iraqi inventory, nor in
Kuwait's
> 1990 inventory (F-1s and A-4s). Iran received about 200 F-4s, and so
> perhaps the one you saw was an Iranian Phantom that had defected or been
> forced down. I'd be surprised if your F-4 had been operational as
of Desert
> Storm, and one or two sightings do nothing to suggest that America was
> arranging for Saddam to acquire F-4s.
The F-4 I saw was not the one pictured on eBay. The one on eBay was
apparently destroyed on the ground, as it was photographed sitting in
a collapsed hangar (I _may_ have seen that one as well -- I saw the
tail portion of a destroyed aircraft poking out from under debris at
the al Jabr base in a building that looked a lot like that one, but
did not identify the aircraft type).
The F-4 I saw was airborne over al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, until it was
shot down by a US Navy F-14 Tomcat. Of course, what I saw were two
dots in the sky and then one of the dots exploding -- the downed
aircraft was identified as an Iraqi F-4 by higher headquarters twice
(once to let us know that an enemy aircraft was coming in our
direction, the second time in response to sighting reports going up
the chain of command from guard posts).
It was the only Iraqi aircraft I ever saw in the air, and I never did
hear if they figured out what the hell its pilot was trying to do. He
apparently just flew the thing south as fast as he could get it to go
(the F-4 is pretty fast -- last time I heard, its top speed was STILL
classified -- which may be why it wasn't intercepted further north)
until he got shot down. Maybe it was an intended suicide attack, maybe
the guy was trying to defect.
> Wikipedia says of Bouncing Bettys: "The mines were sold widely and
copies
> were produced in several countries including Greece, India, South
Korea and
> Turkey." Of Claymores: "A number of licensed and unlicensed copies
of the
> mine were produced" in at least 11 countries. I can't find any
accusation
> of U.S. sales of mines to Saddam, and none of the weapons systems
you list
> above are in the 100-row table at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_sales_to_Iraq_1973-1990 . It
remains the
> case that apparently none of the militarily significant weapons systems
> comprising the Iraqi arsenal were of confirmed American origin.
There's no doubt in my mind that the M21 anti-tank mines were US-made
mines. For one thing, in our pre-deployment briefing, we were
specifically told that the US had sold thousands of them to Saddam.
For another thing, I actually got close enough to one to observe that
it bore English markings corresponding to the US ones, and in the US
colors (yellow markings on an overall olive green background).
Likewise, the Claymores looked to be of US make -- the molded "front
toward enemy" marking, etc.
I stayed too far from the "Bouncing Bettys" to determine their
national make -- all I saw of them were the little upward-sticking
probes, and in some cases the top of the canister where sand had blown
away.
As to whether or not these mines were "militarily significant," that's
not even in question. Schwarzkopf's entire strategy was preemptively
dictated by their existence.
> my understanding of
> Iran-Iraq is that any significant armor battles were over well
before these
> TOWs were supplied in 1985. In a multi-year war of attrition on
relatively
> static front lines like the later Iran-Iraq war, 1000 TOWs are a
miniscule
> change to the order of battle.
On the contrary, 1,000 TOWs would be precisely what the doctor ordered
to KEEP the conflict a "multi-year war of attrition on relatively
static front lines." Saddam's military doctrine was essentially the
Soviet model -- particularly, an offensive warfare doctrine of large
artillery barrages followed by an armor breakout. A weapon system with
the potential to take out 20% of Saddam's tank inventory would not
have been a "miniscule" factor.
Tom Knapp
