Iraq secretly bought 1,000 Kornet missiles: Pentagon (those M1A1s WERE hit by Kornets!)

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.

The article posted supports NONE of the claims I see being made here.

I hate to say this, but the article seems to confirm the theory of a Syrian/Ukranian straw purchase arrangement more than Vladimir Putin's guilt.

Back in `98, I remember one of the former Warsaw Pact nations losing a Scud that was not located until it showed up at Customs as the property of a friggin' COLLECTOR! Privately owned MiG-21s are getting to be commonplace (one was auctioned on Ebay), and are sold cheap. For the price of a high-end BMW, I bet I could get a fully-loaded Su-27 Flanker. For the price of buying a home, make it a Tu-22M3 Backfire.

I think we're going to start finding out just how bad the leaks were in Russia over the 90s, and a LOT of that was with Boris Yeltsin in charge.

The Kornet-E Anti-Tank Missile:

The Kornet-E is an "export" version of an anti-tank missile developed specifically by the former Soviet army to counter the threat of modern battle tanks such as the Abrams, America's previously-uncontested "queen of the battlefield."

Weighing about 63 pounds, the Kornet and its guidance system can be easily carried and operated by one or two soldiers.

How Does It Work?

The Kornet operates similar to other so-called anti-tank guided missiles, or ATGMs, used by the United States and other armies.

Once the missile is set up on its tripod, a soldier looks through the weapon's optical sight for a target such as a tank. He then shines a laser beam on the target and launches the missile.

A rocket boosts the Kornet out of its sealed tube and follows the laser beam to the target.

The missile contains high explosives specially arranged within the warhead. Just before the missile impacts a tank's armor, the "shaped charge" explodes and produces a jet of heat that burns through the tank's metal skin.

When the jet burns through the armor and reaches the interior of the tank, the molten armor becomes super-hot fragments that kill the crew and detonate the tank's ammunition.

What’s So Different About Kornet?

Modern tanks, such as the Abrams, counter the threat of most ATGMs with an exterior layer of so-called reactive or explosive armor — essentially, boxes of shaped charge explosives.

When an ATGM detonates against such armor, the tank "reacts" by automatically exploding its own charges. The force of the explosion is intended to push the intense heat from ATGM's lethal blast away from the tank's metal skin, protecting the crew inside.

But the Kornet defeats explosive armor by using dual warheads of shaped charges. The first destroys the tank's protective layer of explosives, allowing the second warhead to burn through the metal beneath, with catastrophic results.

According to military experts, the anti-tank version of the Kornet can penetrate up to 3.9 feet of armor and can be launched from as far away as 5,500 yards. Well-trained soldiers are able to launch up to two missiles per minute by merely discarding the used launch tube and attaching the system's laser-aiming device onto a new missile.

What Makes the Kornet an Additional Concern?

Unlike other anti-tank weapons believed to be in the Iraqi arsenal, the Kornet-E can be used against coalition tanks in any kind of weather, day or night. Its laser-guided system makes it extremely difficult to counteract, say military analysts.

Also, the launch of a Kornet is difficult to spot. Coupled with a hard-to-detect guidance system, analysts say the missile could be used against low-flying helicopters vulnerable to its high-explosive warhead.

What's more, the Kornet can carry another type of warhead called thermobaric or incendiary explosives. These munitions release a fine spray of fuel before denotation. The resulting explosion creates a rapidly expanding fireball that literally consumes all oxygen within an area.

Such missiles would be used against "soft" targets such as buildings, exposed infantry, or light- or non-armored vehicles such as trucks.

Saddam learned how to keep his regulars in line over the last 12 years. The surrender talks were a sham from the word go. The expert said 15 tomahawks to get into the bunker, time to send 50.

The article is right about the goal of Saddam. He is fight on a different front. His goal is stay alive until the arab street pushed the USA out. The arabs mistake GWB for x42.

All of these are from `95. Two things to keep in mind.

1. This was when Yeltsin was in charge, and if the reports are correct, the man was probably blitzed.

2. These Komet ATGMs that turned up in Iraq are apparently NOT part of a Russian deal. The article itself says that the defense officals are blaming "Ukrainian arms dealers and possibly some entrepreneurial Syrian generals or the Syrian government itself."

It's easily done. We KNOW the Syrians have been smuggling oil out for Iraq for a long time. It would be a simple matter for them to over-order Komet-E ATGMs, and ship off a portion of the missile shipment to Iraq.

The absence of venom towards Russia on the part of officials is also big. Some old song lyrics hit the mark here: "Silence speaks a thousand words."

The officials aren't blaming Russia. They're casting an eye towards... Syria.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.