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Iraq secretly bought 1,000 Kornet missiles: Pentagon (those M1A1s WERE hit by Kornets!)
The Economic Times ^ | MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2003 10:30:08 AM | The Economic Times

Posted on 03/31/2003 8:29:43 AM PST by Smogger

NEW YORK: Iraqis have secretly bought as many as a thousand Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles which are lightweight, very powerful and easy-to-use, Pentagon officials claimed.

The sellers are Ukrainian arms dealers and possibly some entrepreneurial Syrian generals or the Syrian government itself, the officials were quoted as saying by Newsweek. They reportedly sent Baghdad some 500 Kornets in January.

The Kornet anti-tank missiles were used to attack two US tanks, both Abrams M1A1s during the ongoing war in Iraq. The first M1s ever destroyed by enemy fire in battle, they were caught in an ambush of the US Army's 3/7 Cavalry near As Samawah, on the west bank of the Euphrates River.

Two is not a large number and the invading forces have at least 650 tanks in Iraq with more on the way. But US officials, the magazine said, are worried about the skill or "at least the fanaticism" of the guerrilla fighters who sneaked up on the tanks driving a "technical," a jeep, under cover of a sandstorm.

Less than two weeks into the war, the magazine examined whether it started with enough force and whether Operation Iraqi Freedom risks blowing up into a Middle East War.

That scenario, once very remote, is no longer unthinkable, it said. Barring a sudden collapse of the Baathist regime - still a possibility, senior administration officials insist - the war in Iraq is about to get bloodier.

"Somewhere deep in his network of tunnels and bunkers," Saddam Hussein "is convinced he can win," not by defeating superior US forces on the battlefield, but merely by surviving while Islamic rage builds from Cairo to Islamabad, the magazine said quoting a senior US official.

With a show of "shock and awe," American might was supposed to overwhelm the Iraqis and crack Saddam Hussein's regime. Tipped off by a spy in his inner circle, the US military tried to kill him and his sons as they slept with a surprise "decapitation" strike on the first night of the war.

US officials were engaged in delicate secret talks with some of Saddam Hussein's henchmen which appear to have gone nowhere. Saddam Hussein is almost surely alive; the spy, according to a knowledgeable source, has been "compromised," meaning that he is probably dead.

When American soldiers began dying in ambushes from Iraqis pretending to surrender, it didn't take long for Washington officialdom to start leaking exculpatory memoranda.

One CIA memo made available to Newsweek was entitled "Iraq: Potential aRisks in Rear Areas." The paper warned of Saddam loyalists attacking American supply lines with "hit and run tactics" using "RPGs rocket-propelled grenades) and small arms."

The document was widely distributed at the Pentagon, though one intelligence official, Newsweek said, acknowledges that, given Washington's strange hothouse ways, the paper might have been more carefully read at the top if it had been stamped "TOP SECRET" instead of merely "SECRET."

Saddam Hussein's irregulars have adopted tricks from the Somali guerrillas, including firing from behind groups of women and children.

Saddam Hussein will try to increase the American death rate, possibly by ordering his commanders to use bio-chem weapons, the magazine said.


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: casualties; cornets; iraq; kornet; missiles; missles; pentagon
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The Kornet anti-tank missiles were used to attack two US tanks, both Abrams M1A1s during the ongoing war in Iraq. The first M1s ever destroyed by enemy fire in battle, they were caught in an ambush of the US Army's 3/7 Cavalry near As Samawah, on the west bank of the Euphrates River.

Remember this report of the two US tanks destroyed by RPG's and the initial reports of the use of Kornets? Well here is your confirmation. The dirty Russian dogs.

1 posted on 03/31/2003 8:29:43 AM PST by Smogger
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To: Smogger
You forgot to say that "Putin knew nothing about this!" That is the standard mantra around here! (sarcasm) The dirty Russian dogs.

I agree with your statement! Getting very tired of the defense of Putin and the Russians by some on here! How many more times do we have to be shown Russian equipment in Iraq before some people wake up?

2 posted on 03/31/2003 8:32:11 AM PST by PhiKapMom (Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US)
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To: Smogger
Saddam Hussein is almost surely alive; the spy, according to a knowledgeable source, has been "compromised," meaning that he is probably dead.

Propaganda. The above is the tipoff.

3 posted on 03/31/2003 8:34:00 AM PST by Naspino
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To: Smogger
Wouldn't the U.N. be deeply saddened by this?? Afterall, they administered the oil for food program which forbid Saddam from buying any weapons....or so they thought.

Shheeesh, another nail in the coffin of the U.N.

4 posted on 03/31/2003 8:34:54 AM PST by 1Old Pro (The Dems are self-destructing before our eyes, How Great is That !)
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To: PhiKapMom
I agree with your statement! Getting very tired of the defense of Putin and the Russians by some on here! How many more times do we have to be shown Russian equipment in Iraq before some people wake up?

You're going to need more than some antitank missiles getting smuggled, or you're going to have to jump all over President Bush over TOW and Stinger missiles being smuggled out of the US.

One commentator described post-1991 Russia as "The Yard Sale at the End of History."

5 posted on 03/31/2003 8:35:49 AM PST by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!)
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To: PhiKapMom
WHAT REALLY pisses me off (pardon the language) is that there is ENOUGH public access to this information. Here is all the weaponery that the UN SECURITY COUNCIL does know about:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/search/search_db.asp?qu=Kornet+anti-tank+missiles&sc=bothdbt&sm=any

This site does the web crawl through the UN documents and more. Look at all the weaponery! Look at the countries that illegally sold them stuff. This link I posted is just a search on Missiles. Type in a countries name in the SEARCH Suppliers link, ie, China, France, Russia, Germany.... They are all listed. They all know. But the media does not do research. They get better ratings with propaganda!

(/rant)
6 posted on 03/31/2003 8:37:47 AM PST by Calpernia (http://www.politicsandprotest.org/attack.swf)
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To: Smogger
Ruck Fussia.
7 posted on 03/31/2003 8:38:07 AM PST by 11B3 (.308 holes make invisible souls. Belt fed liberal eraser.)
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To: PhiKapMom
Iraq has been supplied with arms by the Soviets for decades.

This has not been directly linked to the Russian government as of yet. How can we have been worried for years about the out-of-control nature of the former Soviets military assets and not understand that some to these transfers and possibily all have been carried out by the criminal gangs which plague that nation?

This appears to have been of that nature but we will know more as days go on. Syria may be more deeply involved than Russia as Powell's recent comments imply.
8 posted on 03/31/2003 8:38:50 AM PST by justshutupandtakeit ( Its time to trap some RATS)
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To: Smogger
Make the Russians pay and pray for mercy.
9 posted on 03/31/2003 8:38:55 AM PST by Maeve (Siobhan's daughter and sometime banshee.)
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To: Smogger
I have a good friend who's Russian. Lives and works here now. He and I have discussed the Cold War before, what it was like for him growing up there during the Reagan era, etc. I e-mailed him last week and asked him what he thought about the war. His answer blew me away: He thinks the war is all a pretext for cancelling existing oil contracts. This is a VERY intelligent man, mind you, probably genius level, but apparently the brain can't calculate beyond some simple engrained ideas.

MM

10 posted on 03/31/2003 8:38:58 AM PST by MississippiMan
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To: PhiKapMom
Putin was KGB. I still call it the Soviet Union. He is KGB. He is communist. A tiger does not get rid of its stripes. This guy has not got rid of his communism. He is still a commie. All their leaders are.
11 posted on 03/31/2003 8:40:22 AM PST by RetiredArmy
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To: Smogger
The M1A1s were hit in the rear with the missle. The iraqis must have waited for the tanks to pass before firing beause the russians told them it had to be fired at the rear. They didn't take the shot on the flank so the missle probably wouldn't work there.

So, most likely, they are only effective from the rear.

Even though the tanks had support from bradleys no one could see because of a sandstorm. The moving column didn't see the enemy they had passed.

So barring more moving columns in blinding sandstorms it may not be that much of an issue.
12 posted on 03/31/2003 8:42:13 AM PST by TheLooseThread
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To: Smogger
"and possibly some entrepreneurial Syrian generals or the Syrian government itself,"

Things aren't looking too good for Syria...
13 posted on 03/31/2003 8:42:33 AM PST by Rams82
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To: Smogger
*Bump* but we at FR have known the Russkies, Frogs, Krauts and ChiComs were up to no good for years.
14 posted on 03/31/2003 8:43:32 AM PST by ex-Texan (primates capitulards toujours en quete de fromage!)
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To: PhiKapMom
How many more times do we have to be shown Russian equipment in Iraq before some people wake up?

I agree. I tried to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt until this war started and their duplicity was highlighted for all to see. Now I distrust them as much as I have always distrusted the Germans and French. Some of the civilians in both of those societies may not be as anti-American as their leaders but I would bet that most of them are. Anyone who has ever been to Europe and heard their snide and hateful remarks would realize that the Nazi party of old has not been defeated, they've just been underground for all these years and are raising their ugly heads now.

15 posted on 03/31/2003 8:45:14 AM PST by SwatTeam
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To: RetiredArmy
But, but, the Russians are our friends now. They hung an "Open Under New Management" sign and changed the stationary and everything.
16 posted on 03/31/2003 8:47:13 AM PST by Right Angler
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To: PhiKapMom
You forgot to say that "Putin knew nothing about this!"

You also forgot to mention that Tom Dasshole was "saddened."

17 posted on 03/31/2003 8:48:06 AM PST by TheRightGuy (I like PEACE ...and there's nothing more peaceful than a dead terrorist!)
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To: ex-Texan
This sounds like the Russians getting payback for all the Stingers we sold to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. I imagine whomever orchestrated the deal is sitting in his dacha chuckling derisively at the news of our losses.

I doubt, however, we'll lose many more M1s to teenagers firing Kornets from pickup trucks. What those .50s would do to an unarmored light truck and its occupants at close range would be stomach-churning.
18 posted on 03/31/2003 8:49:39 AM PST by B-Chan (Ne messez pas avec le Texas)
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To: Smogger
Can we kick off Frag-a-palooza now?
19 posted on 03/31/2003 8:50:57 AM PST by Darksheare (Nox aeternus en pax.)
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To: B-Chan
The question is, "was this done as part of official Russian government policy?"

The jury is out on that question. One of the pet worries of the post-Cold War national security establishment is trying to figure out who is in charge of Russia's military--or even if anyone is in charge...

20 posted on 03/31/2003 8:53:28 AM PST by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!)
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