Saddam's short regional rise of militaristic projection

Eight years of war with Iran had left Iraq as a clear victor even though it hadn't gained anything from the war but casualties, Iraq had been at war with Iran for 8 years since it launched it's first wave and invasion in September 1980, before being forced to accept the ceasefire on August of 1988 after being on the offensive against Iraq for six years Iran had lost 60km of ground past the Iraqi border by the Iraqi Army and suffered several aircraft sorties.

Saddam Hussein had been made an infamous after ordering killing 5,000 people in a single gas attack on Halabja.

But Iraq came out of that war a regional power.



There was a delicate balance of power between 1988 and 1991, Iraq lost it's slip on power after the western nations led by the United States led a major aerial bombardment following their liberation of Kuwait.

But for a time after the Iran Iraq War there was a lot of uncertainty in the Middle East over the balance of power, Iraq had been ordering a lot of new military hardware to modernize it's forces, and was also on the way to developing a nuclear bomb probably in only a few short years, it had stationed Scud missiles and modified al-Hussein missiles in the west of the country facing towards Israel.

The world was changing, the wall had come down and eastern Europe had several revolutions, during this time in history there was a brief moment where Iraq was taking the opportunity to be the dominant military power in all of the Middle East.

In February 1990, Saddam Hussein demanded US naval vessels leave the Persian Gulf, however passed almost unobserved in the West, as they were all too busy with the developments in Europe and dissolution of the USSR.



By March 1990, US intelligence learned about Iraq building permanent missile launching sites in the west of the country, facing Israel.

Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq was in possession of binary chemical weapons and that:

“By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Israel, if it tries to do anything against Iraq.”

During the Arab Leage Summit, held in Baghdad, in late May 1990, the Iraqi President furthermore called for the liberation of Jerusalem, attacks on the USA and Israel, and demanded $27 billion from Kuwait, while blaming Kuwaiti and Saudi greed for oil, and equating them with an act of war against Iraq.

However there was a small emerald Saddam needed to ensure he had under his direct control to help the Iraqi economy recover from the war and ensure he stayed in his position of power for some more years to come.

The modern state of Kuwait was a country cut out of the old Ottoman empire of Basra back in 1961 for strategic purposes and for the lake of oil it sat on.

Control of Kuwait would be vital in helping Iraq completely recover economically and allow it to prosper following the long war with Iran.

So in August of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait with over 100,000 troops, it only took a matter of hours.



Even though Iraq had a fair claim on Kuwait and had been mislead into believing the west would not intervene it was the resulting 1991 Persian Gulf War that would indefinitely shift the balance of power in the Middle East, as the US led and Saudi paid coalition used a massive amount of air power (including B-52's flying non stop from Barksdale AFB in Louisiana firing cruise missiles) to bombard Iraq destroying most of it's air defense, command centres and air defense centres and eventually a large amount of the countries infrastructure.



Iraq launched Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia with little effect (with the exception of the 28 US soldiers killed in the barracks at Dhahran) in undermining both states, the US ground offensive following the liberation of Kuwait lasted under 100 hours.

After being at war with the United States Saddam Hussein was left in power, he no longer had enough projection to use conventional power against his neighbours but still had some tanks and army and a marginally effective air force, the reason for leaving him in power was to ensure that neither Syria nor Iran could walk over Iraq with the brutal tyrant in power.

It was a drastic turning in the balance of power the aftermaths of them could be evident when the US led the invasion on the false provocation that Iraq actually mustered up the resources to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction.

if the majority had ruled

Cast your mind back to 1991, the Soviet Union was on verge of collapse, Germany was reunited after nearly half a century, Bush Senior announced a New World Order was coming upon us, also there was a war going on in the Gulf, in January 15th the infamous Operation Desert Storm begun, the power structure in the Middle East was about to change drastically.

By the time the ground offensive begun against Kuwait the Iraqi military had suffered major damage, the Iraqi fighter jets that weren't destroyed in their concrete bunkers had flown to Iran, Iraq's long time enemy, the Iraqi Army were bombed on its retreat, the highway was hit with everything they had from the air, F-15's, B-52's, AV-8B Harriers, A-6's and A-10's, with so many casualties inflicted it became known as the Highway of Death.



Iraq was virtually defeated, Kuwait was liberated, and in the south of Iraq the Shia majority that had been oppressed for Saddam for so long led an anti government uprising, this was led by the perception that the power of President Saddam Hussein was weak at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at government repression.

The rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution disbanding the Iranian military led Saddam in one way in an attempt to launch a large scale invasion of Iran, in one way this solidified Khomeini's revolution and led to thousands joining the Iranian military and launching an offensive war by 1982 against Iraq, his main ideal was to export the revolution to Saddam's oppressed Shia majority.

Having the majority of people is one of the basic fundamentals of democracy, if the Americans had seen eye to eye with those attempting a rebellion history for both of the countries could have been drastically different.

Saddam managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power. They were ruthlessly crushed by the loyalist forces spearheaded by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the population was successfully terrorized. During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives.

George HW. Bush later had this to say:

"I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America. I don't think the Shias in the south, those who are unhappy with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad or the Kurds in the north, ever felt that the United States would come to their assistance to overthrow this man. (...) I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

We all know the history of the Iraq war that started in 2003 twelve years after all of this, it had been admitted by Colin Powell that if they had taken out Saddam the Iraqi military in the aftermath may have been too weak and Iran and Syria would have had a good chance at gaining more power and dominance in the region.

If these rebellions had been successful Iran would have surely had some input around the holy city of Basra which they had made several unsuccessful attempts to capture in the 1980s in human wave attacks Iraq may have been split into two states, Basra to the south, and the region of Mosul to the north (which was mainly inhabited by Sunni Muslims).

Regardless what these states would have done afterwords what was admitted by Colin Powell begs the question that even if one of the main roles in today's occupation of Iraq is really to promote democracy and the ideals of the majority.

On the other hand



The idea of bringing a war to a dramatic end by taking out the leader was in fact tested in the opening salvo of the 2003 invasion, known as the Dora Farms strike, it involved two F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers dropping four enhanced, satellite-guided 2,000-pound Bunker Busters GBU-27 on the compound, complementing this attack was a further four Tomahawk missiles fired from destroyers in the the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

Saddam Hussein was not present nor were any members of the Iraqi leadership or Hussein family. The attack killed one civilian and injured fourteen others, including nine women and one child.

It was later discovered that Saddam hadn't even visited the area since 1995!

Iraq's slip on power

Following an eight year war with Iran Saddam Hussein's Iraq was in deep debt, although he came out of the war claiming to be a winner the truth was the countries economy had taken a hard blow, the war had been a blow to his forces and he owed billions in war debts to his southern Emirate neighbors.

However following the war with Iran the Iraqis (or Saddam at least) was opting to make Iraq a regional military super power making plans to rebuild his military

It owed $65 billion in unforgiven debts to Kuwait, which in those years was depressing other oil states since it was overproducing oil selling it for under the price required by OPEC, this further devastated the Iraqi economy, that along with the fact that due to history Kuwait was technically part of Iraq and had been given statehood on ignorant strategic purposes by western powers.

During this postwar time (1988 to 1990) the Iraqi regime had big plans regarding their regional power in the future, especially regarding improving their air power as a potent weapon of terror and a tool for destruction of enemy economies. Aside from purchasing around 140 MiG-29s (137 were eventually ordered and built, but less than 40 delivered) and 36 Su-24 fighters from the USSR (intended to replace obsolete MiG-23MF/MLs, Tu-16s, TU-22Bs, and MiG-25RBs) the IrAF was also showing immense interest in obtaining Su-27 Flanker and Mirage 2000 fighters.

As well as this Iraq was financing the development of a conventionally armed version of the French ASMP supersonic cruise missile, and the development of the MAA-1 Piranha heat-seeking air-to-air missile in Brazil, both of which were eventually planned to enter production in Iraq too. The basic problem with all these projects was money: Iraq was so starved of finances that negotiations for Mirage 2000s were dropped in 1989, because the French insisted that Iraq had to first pay its debts. The collection of MiG-29 interceptors was also slow, Baghdad instead turning to Moscow and negotiating for Su-27s. Eventually, all the projects were stopped due to the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 which was Iraq's final attempt to stop the country going into economic collapse, after (in a view opposed to in the west) Iraq annexed Kuwait renaming it the 19th province of Iraq.



While in the west it was blown out of proportion, after launching Operation Desert Shield the US convinced the UN to veto Iraq, a coalition was built up in Saudi Arabia under the pretext of defending it and that Iraq was ready to attack (they were digging in around Kuwait City).

Starting on January 17th Iraq's economic and military problems were about to get much worse, the start of the stupid TV war Operation Desert Storm had begun, several units of the Iraqi air force flew to Iran to avoid destruction by the coalition onslaught of aircraft sorties and cruise missile strikes.



Iraq in retaliation only managed to fire 32 Scud missiles at the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa killing two civilians and a few at Saudi Arabia in one case killing 28 soldiers in a barracks in Dhahran.

After the first 100 hours of the ground war the American led coalition ground forces stopped at the Euphrates, Iraq had been blown to tatters and most of the world held economic sanctions against them, Saddam was left in power to stop Iran and Syria becoming too powerful over a weak Iraq, which is how they had left Iraq, a weak enemy that could come under threat from their biggest potential enemy in the neighboring region (Iran).

In 2003 the US went the extra mile and went in to personally overthrow Saddam, which led to a rather violent war which has only cooled down in the past year or so, the Iraqi people had a real street thug as their president for the latter half of the 20th century and paid heavily for it after only ever maintaining a brief grip of power that a nation of its size and wealth deserved!

the Iraqi No Fly Zone period

During Operation Desert Storm the Iraqi Air Force was one of the biggest in the Middle East, following that however it was quite a different story.

There was only one coalition aircraft shot down in the entire conflict, an F/A-18 flown by Captain Michael “Scott” Speicher was downed by an Iraqi MiG-25, the (the remains of his body were only found the other day), following the coalition bombing several of Iraq's prime fighter jets were destroyed as several of their air bases were destroyed on the ground while their aircraft rested in their bunkers.



More aircraft than were shot down by the Americans flew to Iran (Iraq's mortal enemy at the time), the Iranians claimed all these aircraft as reparations for the Iran Iraq War and refused to return any of them, that was 137 aircraft whilst the coalition destroyed 42.

After Desert Storm the Iraqis had lost all of their MiG-29's, Mirage F-1's and several other aircraft and bombers, following the war the Iraqi Air Force had a single Tu-22 bomber and several squadrons of MiG-25 Foxbat's they had received from the Soviet Union before the war against Iran.

They were proven in Operation Desert Storm on more than one occasion to be able to outrun missiles such as AIM-120 AMRAAM's fired from F-15's and AIM-54 Phoenix missiles fired from F-14 Tomcats, this proved them a good asset to have during the No-fly-zone period put into force by the United States.

Also during these periods however it would prove to be difficult to keep these aircraft in the air, like the Iranian Air Force following the revolution in 1979 there was an even stricter measure put on the Iraqi Air Force enforced by the United Nations making it virtual impossible for the Iraqis to get spare parts to keep their planes in the air.



There was some dispute over what parts of Iraqi air space rightfully belonged to Iraq, the United States was enforcing the No-fly zones using the Phoenix armed F-14 Tomcat and the AMRAAM armed F-15 Eagle, this resulted in just three Iraqi MiG's being destroyed in several such encounters, usually the MiG-25's because of their impressive speed (3.2 Mach) was able to outrun these missiles and maneuver in such a way as to avoid them.

That being said the Foxbats didn't score any victory against coalition aircraft in this times and the US had a lot of and sea power over Iraq in the 1990's as evident by the hastily arranged Operation Desert Fox which saw a series of attacks against Iraqi military installations to deform Iraq's military.

Afterwords Saddam stepped up in his efforts to down a coalition plane which proved not to be successful and saw coalition aircraft for the next five years attacking Iraqi airfields and shooting down several Iraqi interceptor jets, therefore further weakening the nearly destroyed Iraqi air force.

Five years later in 2003 when the Americans launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to topple Saddam Hussein's regime an order was given by Saddam to bury the dissemble or bury the remainder of their flyable planes, the Iraqi Air Force put up no resistance against the invading coalition forces.



Several examples of the MiG-25's that survived the Gulf War were found in most cases buried, several abandoned broken down MiG-23's were also discovered in very poor condition abandoned at their bases.

Most of these were later sold for scraped or simple destroyed and dumped.

Today none of Saddam's planes bought between 1979 and 1990 remain in service with the Iraqi Air Force today.

a policy of throwing resources at the problem

I the past 60 years since World War II ended America hasn't really prevailed in any war where they had a landslide victory even though they had an abundance of well more advanced arms than any of their adversaries, I will cite Americas wars since the war in Korea in the 1950's:

Korean War (1950-1953)

Victorious early on in the war the American forces managed to defeat the stretched out defending Koreans bringing the war up north until the Chinese (with no air support) with tanks and artillery overrun the American forces forcing them back to the 38th Parallel were Korea is divided with until this day.

Vietnam War (1964-1975)

After more bombs being dropped on North Vietnam than Western Europe in all of World War II, this causing a lot of damage didn't destroy the Vietnamese forces and when the Americans went into the jungle they ended up fighting an enemy that was everywhere and at the same time nowhere!

As the years progressed more died and Nixon bombed the north so hard that the bombs started overflowing into neighboring Cambodia!



The long and dirty war which saw over 58,000 Americans dead;
By 1975 the north were coming down hard on the south, Operation Frequent Wind was launched in Saigon evacuating the last of the Americans and a few hundred Vietnamese in a giant airlift before the communist north took the south of Vietnam, they had failed in their initiative which was originally set out over ten years earlier!

Operation Urgent Fury (1983)

The US invasion of the tiny island state of Grenada in the Caribbean because it was obviously a threat, the invasion consisted of 7,300 soldiers with heavy air support a against 1,500 Grenadian regulars and 722 Cuban military engineers, they achieved a quick victory, however some 19 American soldiers were killed and 116 wounded!

Operation Just Cause (1989)



George HW. Bush obviously had a "just cause" for launching Operation Just Cause the invasion of the third world state of Panama to oust the dictator Noriega, 205 US troops were killed while up to 4,000 Panamanian civilians were estimated to have been killed.

They achieved this with total air superiority of course and by using a land connection to its bases in the Canal zone!

Operation Desert Storm (1991)

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 the US responded with Operation Desert Shield launching a spectacular amount of air and naval power into the Gulf Theater, around 500,000 troops were also sent, below is a clip from the time showing what tactics were used;



Basically fire power over manpower, what this resulted in was the US bombing the Iraqis in Kuwait, hunting them out of their and then bombing them on the highway on their way home, they continued the war into Iraq bombing all of the major cities and destroying the nations military bringing it back economically to the stone age.

Economic sanctions afterwords starved tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians!

Well done America, you achieved a TV war and got to test your military in a fireworks show the size of a limited Vietnam!

War in Afghanistan (2001)



After 9/11 the US having total air superiority over Afghanistan proceeded to look for targets bombing caves and other suspected Taliban strong points, allied with a 19th century like cavalry the Northern Alliance they gave it air support while it took Kabul in late 2001.

The war has been on and off since then with the Taliban like the Viet Cong popping up everywhere and nowhere.

Currently Obama has launched Operation Tip of the Sword, the largest marine operation since Vietnam, I wonder if the same lessons learned from the Viet Cong will apply to the Taliban?

Iraq War (2003-present)



Thankfully the Iraq War seems to be drawing to a close, a 250,000 strong army covered by the air managed to cripple the Saddam regime, Iraq had its back broken in 1991 and wasn't able to recover since then because of the economic sanctions, yet insurgents did kill a costly amount of American soldiers since then.

Some 4,000 American troops were killed since George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared 'Mission Accomplished'.


So basically we have established that America likes having the big guns on a battle and can defeat standing armies with it but when it boils down to conventional warfare against insurgents the American beast can get clogged down and dirty wars prove to be Americas fault since Vietnam, but they've seem to have adopted a policy since Vietnam of simply throwing more money and resources at a war, the Iraq War proved this to work eventually but after much cost in valuable dollars and more importantly lives!

P.S. Today marks the death of 93 year old former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, he served under President Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson, I would recommend watching the Fog of War documentary about him!

modern day amphibious warfare

The above famous picture of one of the D-day landings on June 6th, 1944 shows the massive American/British/Canadian amphibious assault in Northern France spearheading the liberation of Nazi occupied Europe (or Fortress Europe), it was the largest amphibious landing in all of history.

Just over a year later two atomic bombs where detonated no Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan bringing the Pacific War and World War II to an end, conventional war was to continue throughout the cold war and up to this day, so even today with all these super weapons conventional warfare, including amphibious warfare is still important.



Your standard amphibious assault ship today can hold around 12 helicopters or 10 AV-8B Harrier II's or a mix of the two along with smaller boats for amphibious landings (stored in the well, see image above).

Its punch on shorelines would include strafing runs from marine Harriers backed by Marines in RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, to me the ship is more of a transport fleet to land in troops after the major punch is given, the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 is all the evidence I need for this theory.



Built the same year as the Normandy invasion the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) with its 16 inch guns served along with other battleships in World War II on coastal bombard of islands in Japan such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, it also served in the Korean War in the 1950's helping amphibious landings there.

But in the 1980's under under Ronald Reagans 600-ship Navy it was restored replacing its old World War II era flak guns with the latest in AA defences along with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

It's shells could hit and destroy solid concrete dug in positions from 26 miles away on the coast of its target, even the 2,000 pound bombs dropped from B-52's can't do this, and I'm pretty sure a strafing run from a Harrier couldn't neither, this was proven in 1991 when engaging Iraqi targets in Kuwait; its Tomahawk cruise missiles could also engage reinforcing convoys to the besieged ground forces outflanking them while troops get a chance to land;

So while World War II era battleships could still do some major damage in today's conventional warfare not much has really changed with amphibious warfare.



The Soviet Union focused a lot on this type of warfare in the 1970's, an example above (the Polnochny) shows that they carried helicopter gunships rather than Marine transports and Harriers, the above example being the Mil Mi-24 'Hind' gunship, which could ferry troops while engaging ground targets;
however very few examples of these are seen in Russia today!

Saddam inspired by Stalin?

Saddam, the dictator of Iraq from the late 1970's all the way up to 2003, during his time the Iraqi people suffered, but Saddam didn't care less, he loved war and thrived to be victorious, but we all know that story, his massive army and Republican Guard and his propaganda movies always making his army looking brilliant and him looking like the tough leader.



But this propaganda couldn't be further from the truth, when he attacked Iran he vowed to crush it and the Ayatollah in less than a year, the truth was his army suffered badly on the front line and he executed several army generals who tried to retreat, he did just that in 1982 and offered to make peace, but the Ayatollah refused and the Iranians pushed forward, what resulted was another six years of horrible trench fighting, the worse since World War I, Saddam even used chemicals daily on the Iranians and at one stage in 1988 killed 5,000 Kurds in a single gas attack.

Like Stalin Saddam didn't want an uprising and was suspicious of everyone, like Stalin he thought everybody was out to get them and killed close friends and even family members for the littlest of offences, people in Iraq under Saddam had to keep their head down and not question their government.

When he invaded Kuwait in August 1990 he achieved outstanding victory, having starting at 2 in the morning he had the country occupied by nightfall and would remain in his hands for nearly a year.
Speaking of Kuwait it is an interesting country because it used to be part of the Ottoman empire of Basra, when Iraq was unified into one country in the 1920's Kuwait was separated from the rest of Iraq because of the large quantity of oil that's there, so maybe Saddam was justified on this one.

However George HW. Bush continually called Saddam a Hitler and launched Operation Desert Shield to protect Saudi Arabia from an invasion from Iraq and then Operation Desert Storm, the war was a fireworks show for the American media showing their superior weapons as they flew thousands of sorties and bombarded Iraqi defences driving them out of Kuwait and back into Iraq and continually attacking them, Daddy Bush's ground war lasted a hundred hours before withdrawing and a cease fire put in place, but here's the thing, even though his "elite" Republican Guard was crippled, his air force destroyed Saddam was still in power.


Saddams worst enemies

Bush called for the Iraqi citizens to overthrow his leader when it was already established like Stalin he instantly murdered anyone who questioned him, I'm sure there were many unheard heroes who tried to take down Saddam Hussein after the Americans had blown their country to the stone age and left Saddam in power.

However George W. Bush had his own agenda regarding Saddam when he entered office in 2001, in 2003 he initiated his shock and awe invasion of Iraq, Saddam was found hiding in a hole, his fate had finally caught up with him after all those years of knowing it.

The fact it took two presidents of the United States to go to war with Saddam until finally taking him out shows how powerful and unwilling he was to stand down, even when it meant that thousands of his people had to die and continually suffer under his regime, today the Iraqi people like the Soviet Union after World War II would rather forget about the horrid dictator that ruined Iraq!

Rebuilding in Iraq after both the 1991 and 2003 war is going slowly today but after Hussein was hanged in 2006 it is now slowly starting the beginning of a new and better Iraq.

Quantity better than quality

I had wrote a thesis before about how basic conventional warfare has been phased out, this couldn't be further than the truth during Ronald Reagan's second term as president of the United States in the mid to late 1980's.

He had planned to be stronger than the bear in the woods (the USSR) and really meant it for what he had started.

He had planned for a 600 ship Navy, this included:

Recommissioning older Iowa class battleships from World War II

Building more of the new aegis cruisers

Keeping older ships in service longer

Building several more Nimitz class carriers

To understand the scope of things one Nimitz carrier requires 6,000 crew members to function properly and carries over 90 fixed wing aircraft, during the 1980's these were a mix between F-14 Tomcats to defend the carrier, (one of which could shoot down 6 Soviet aircraft from up to 100 miles away), more new F/A-18 Hornets which could engage air and ground targets along with A6 Intruders and EA-6 Prowlers which could be escorted on bombing runs.



About four more of these were commissioned before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, by that time the US Navy was the largest in the world with 15 carrier battle groups, 4 battleship surface action groups, a handful of Aegis cruisers and over 100 attack submarines.



But did quality also fit in with this, well the truth was even though with the size of it being bigger then the Soviets the fleet also had more quality in it, for instance at the time the old Iowa class battleships, (commissioned in the 1940's during the Pacific War against the Japanese, these were refitted with RGM-84 Harpoon, BGM-109 Tomahawk, and Phalanx CIWS system capabilities, plus their armor plating would be more resilient against anti-ship missiles, this was perfect for attacking positions on shore and in shore in a coastal target, its 16 inch guns able to haul something as heavy as a small car nearly 20 miles!
While its Tomahawk missiles could hit targets around 2,500km away!

This configuration on the USS Missouri (BB-63) during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991 proved it to be perfect for the war.

But when the wall came down in '89 the Soviets were gone and Russia wasn't seen as much as a threat, Congress cut funds decommissioning the older ships that made up the 600 ships Navy.

Today though the US Navy still has a hefty 11 Nimitz class aircraft carriers and a few dozen missile destroyers, its small than it ever was but is still hi-tech, but in the case of a conventional war in the future will we see the return of older ships to help fill the void?

At the end of the day unlike the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II the US Navy managed to cleverly combine quality and quantity.

the deeply flawed Patriot

In 1991 during the Gulf War between the allies and Iraq Saddam Hussein possessed several Scud and Al Hussein missiles, to counter these threats the US deployed their new version of the Patriot missile system, this one designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.

But how effective was it?

On January 18th 1991 it was reported that the first ballistic missile was shot down, in fact it didn't engage anything but a computer glitch, hench a missile that didn't exist, this was to start the long history of failings malfunction and general uselessness relating to this expensive hardware.

On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 American soldiers, battery at Dhahran been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system's internal clock had drifted by one third of a second. Due to the closure speed of the interceptor and the target, this resulted in a miss distance of 600 meters.

Okay one screw up, even though it was reported at the end of the Gulf War that the Patriot missile had a 70% success rate in Saudi Arabia and a 40% success rate in Israel, however according to George HW Bush the success rate of the Patriot was 97%, this is backed up by nothing and he was clearly talking out of his arse.

There is actually no evidence that any Scuds were hit during the, analysis of postwar videos show nothing of the sort, most of the Patriots simply firing too late missing their targets or just firing and exploding in a great ball of fire.

Overall the correct figure for success rate in the Gulf War is 10%, and we'll accept that even though it's probably more close zero, the US Army were also pretty sure there were some major problems in the Patriot, but why report this to the public, that's what the enemy wants right?

That's probably why daddy Bush rattled off his 97% success rate calling the men that operate it patriots to not have anyone second guessing, but is a missile system that creates its own targets and has several errors really something that is worth continuing to make and put into combat?

When deployed in Kuwait in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 a British Panavia Tornado was returning home with no weapons after a mission flying in friendly skies when a Patriot suddenly fired a missile hitting it head on killing both the pilots, it was later described as a glitch.

The Patriot had 12 engagements in that war, 3 of them friendly fire incidents, it was described later in the war as scoring 9 out of 9, well done guys, what about the three jets they downed, three jets the Iraqi's probably would not have been able to down!

Over ten years had passed since Operation Desert Shield and the Patriot is still messing up, I'd like to note that the Israeli's still use the MIM-23 Hawk missiles to scan and defend their air space even though the US consider is obsolete.

They had given the Israelis Patriot missiles during the Gulf War when Saddam had targeted Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Israelis were so dissatisfied with the performance of the missile defense, that they were preparing their own military retaliation on Iraq regardless of US objections since the Patriot made little to no difference!

the PlayStation Generation

Back in 1991 during the buildup to Operation Desert Storm against Iraq there were several video games released relating to the event (the one below F-19).



Saying that video games and war have a close relationship is a pretty obvious statement and if your not instantly familiar with games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Arma Assault then you obviously don't play games (at all).

But what's interesting is when you send your Grand Theft Auto or ace shooter at BF-2 into a real war, Evan Wright a journalist calls these guys the PlayStation Generation.

He even penned a book Generation Kill about them and his experiences when he was embedded with them (the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the USMC) during Operation Iraqi Freedom in mid 2003, he describes how in Iraq they "killed very well" unlike US personnel in other wars where they lost their innocence first.

This theory is backed up by the George Gittoes movie Soundtrack to War in which soldiers listen to heavy metal music and rock and roll songs during the heat of combat (again in Iraq in 2003), one of them even mentioning listening to 2Pac driving over the border when the shock and awe invasion begun.



Other soldiers describe how its not really like a video game one guy exclaiming how "you see in the movies, bang your dead you fall down, here its bang, you should be dead, your guts are hanging out, but your walking and talking swinging in a swing set swingin'like your half crazy. They just don't die!"

After watching that documentary a few times I have no idea what he was exactly talking about, but the truth is video games still have a bit to go before they authentically simulate realism in combat.



But not much further...

the biggest threat to peace in the Middle East

Israel, a state born out of Jewish terrorism and the only country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons, 150 or so.

This is the same Israel that has hated its neighbours and fought wars and invaded parts of their neighbours starting with the land they wrestled from the Palestinians and formed their own country on in 1948, the US first found out that Israel was developing nuclear weapons after an overflight of a U-2 spy plane photographed a nuclear reactor.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Syrians were about to enter Upper Galilee Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized the arming of missiles and the placing of eight nuclear armed F-4 Phantom II's at Tel Nof Airbase on 24 hour alert and as many nuclear missile launchers at Sedot Mikha Airbase operational as possible, they're initial targets including the Egyptian and Syrian military headquarters near Cairo and Damascus.

This forced the US to launch Operation Nickel Grass bringing supplies to the IDF to help them win the war against the Arab armies conventional and retaining control of the Golan Heights and Sinai that they had seized in 1967 and still cling on to to this day.

When Iraq attempted to develop nuclear weapons the Israeli's briefly teamed up with the Iranians flying sorties against Iraqi sites, Operation Opera launched by the Israeli Air Force in 1981 knocked out a major Iraqi reactor supplied by France proving that Israel was to remain the only nuclear power in the region.



In 1991 when Iraq launched nearly 40 conventional Scud missiles at Tel Aviv Saddam Hussein vowing to wipe out the city the Israeli's threatened that if they didn't stop they'd be looking at "an Iraq without a Baghdad."

Where they threatening a nuclear strike on Baghdad?

The Americans managed to keep them back by attacking 100 targets selected by the IDF.

Today Israel has missiles that can reach targets from over 7,800 km away from their launch point being able to targets any city in the Arab and Muslim world, and considering how Israel was formed and their foreign policy from day one is it really smart to give them this power?

Even though tough Iranian generals have recently been saying things like they can wipe Israel from existence in 11 days the truth is that is if Israel sits back with its thumb up its ass, and if Iran attacks first they will give Israel the excuse to prevail, if Israel attack Iran first (its 80 or so nuclear facilities) then Iran will prevail in a much more dangerous way and most probable way the US could help the Israeli's to stop them pushing the nuclear button is to blow the shit outta the Iranians conventionally.

when can 'operation unification' begin?

Ah North Korea, dictated by a movie buff who represents a dead guy who keeps his people isolated from the real world, and who is attempting to build and may acquire (one or two) nuclear weapons.

Okay before I even start check out the satellite image of North Korea at night compared to South Korea;



That's where the problem starts, the North Korean people need to see the light, they're a traditional old fashioned dictatorship divided by the 38th Parallel by the extremely wealthy South Korea, both countries (South Korea backed by the United States) never officially ended the Korean war, they are currently in cease fire mode since 1953!

And North Korea recently ended agreements to end its nuclear program, yes they're continuing their nuclear program, isn't it time we ended the 1953 war and take down North Korea.

I mean they have no good political stance like Iran does and is basically an evil dictatorship, where does that fit in Obama's new world order?

So what am I suggesting?

Breaking the cease fire, some 40,000 US troops are stationed near the Parallel while the North Korean army have something like 1,000,000 troops, I know they are not matching them man for man, remember the North Korean army look like this;



Think the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq (specifically Operation Desert Storm), the US had superior firepower not superior man power, the same would work against North Korea, analysis of its air force show mostly 1950's era Soviet aircraft with the exception of the 20 or so MiG-29 Fulcrums that are used to defend Pyongyang, that air force could be destroyed in round about a day with some help from the South Korean air force.



Followed by strategic bombing (which the Americans get to practice exactly what they have to do every single day), of troop concentrations and ground forces followed by an invasion by large forces of US troops and South Korean soldiers, Operation Unification would be a good name for it don't you think?

For instance Saddam Hussein was a bastard (no matter what way you look at it), and out of date documents showed that he was trying to acquire nuclear weapons, the UN Security Council was sure it was not, but there was a risk so the US launched Operation Iraqi Freedom and overthrew the horrible dictator, he had no WMD's however, but there was oil in Iraq.

10% of the worlds resources that is.

I know that must have been the coincidence of the century right?

However when North Korea tests a nuclear ballistic missile that could actually pose a threat its downplayed!

how to sell a war: the bad guy murders babies

The pictured girl told the world under tears that she saw how Saddam Hussein's soldiers took babies out of their incubators and let them die on the cold floor.

That was three months before the 1991 Operation Desert Storm against Iraq (in which Iraq was blown back to the stone age), George HW Bush repeated her statement several times before the war begun.

But it wasn't the truth "Nurse" Nayirah hadn't been in Kuwait at the time. And she was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington, USA.

The lie



Only hours after Saddam Husseins Iraq had invaded Kuwait in August 1990 Kuwaitis living in the US hired the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton - a job worth $1 million a month. This was the biggest ever contract in the history of public relations to improve the image of their corrupt, oil-rich regime.

The story of how Iraqi troops, in the first days of the invasion, went into Al-Adan hospital, tore the sick babies from incubators and left them on the cold floor to die was graphically told to Congress on November 1990 before the crucial vote to send US troops (passed by about 5 votes).

What the audience didn't know however was that the 15-year old girl who made the moving, tearful testimony was none other than Niyirah al-Sabah - daughter of the US Ambassador to Kuwait. She had allegedly worked as a volunteer in the maternity ward of the hospital. But nurses who live in the two story white building opposite the hospital in Kuwait City claimed that they had never seen the girl before in their life.

She had been trained by Hill and Knowlton but that didn't matter, already Amnesty International helped publicize the fact that innocent babies had been murdered by hostile Iraqi invaders, President Bush even mentioned the incubator incident in five of his speeches and seven senators referred to them in speeches backing a pro-war resolution.

So there you have it, 14 or so babies who weren't murdered help generate a war that blew (literally) Iraq and its people back to the stone age!

are stealth aircraft proven?

In 1980 during the end of the Cold War the hi-tech f-117 stealth bomber was first revealed to the public, it was supposed to be undetectable to radar and able to penetrate deep behind enemy lines to destroy strategic targets.

It was 1991 it was shown to be top gun in Operation Desert Storm flying raids against Baghdad, not one was lost during the war but the British and French frigates in the gulf could easily detect the "undetectable".

In 1999 during the NATO bombing of Kosovo an F-117 was downed after being detected by an old Soviet radar system, the Russians even got a look compromising the then 25 year old stealth technology, another F-117 was damaged before the end of the war but still made it back to its base.

The F-117 was recently decommissioned a few months ago and also last July a 0.9 billion dollar B-2 crashed in Guam because of water in the sensors skewed the air-pressure readings too high causing it to crash and burn.



The F-22 is supposed to fill the void as an air superiority fighter over aircraft such as the Su-27, and also be a stealth fighter but because of its weight, size, speed and maneuverability it fails at these, already 127 F-22's are in service with the USAF and will soon prove to be another expensive unproven failure.

What the IRIAF consists of today

It seems that Bush has not attacked Iran, tensions have been rising since 2006 when it was even suggested that nukes be in such an attack since it was too big to invade!

What I always wanted to know was whether or not the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) would have posed a credible threat to USAF aircraft?

Back in the 1970's in the Shah's Iran the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was spending millions on high technology from the United States, by 1979 the air force had over 450 modern aircraft even a match at the time for the Soviet Union, these aircraft included 120 F-4 Phantom II jets, 79 Grumman F-14 Tomcats (out of a scheduled 80) and even F-5's.

These were later transferred into the successor of that the IRIAF after the 1979 revolution, for the next year alot of these were grounded due to maintenance problems with several Tomcats, but on September 1980 after the Iraqi Air Force launched its invasion by using the IrAF to strike IRIAF aircraft on the ground they failed the main objective since most IRIAF were sheltered in concrete bunkers.

Iran launched the largest air operation in the whole Iran Iraq War and in the countries history, less than 24 hours later Operation Kaman 99 was launched, 60 F-14 Tomcats were launched to protect Iran some armed with the AIM-54 missile system, 30 F-4's then hit back at Iraqi air bases taking out 55% of it there and then.

For the rest of the war Iranian F-14's were used for protecting the Khark Island installation, over 300 air-to-air engagements against IrAF fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers, were fought in these areas alone between 1980 and 1988.

The IrAF had acquired some French Dassault Mirage F-1's which downed a total of three Tomcats.



In Operation Desert Storm in 1991 several Iraqi planes fled to Iran to avoid being destroyed by coalition craft, these included several Mirage F1s, MiG-25 Foxbats, MiG-21 Fishbeds, MiG-27s, Su-24MK Fencer-Ds, MiG-29 Fulcrums, Su-20s, Su-22M Fitters, Su-25 Frogfoots, MiG-23s and a number of Il-76s.



Also in 1993 Russia sold Iran a number of MiG-29 Fulcrums, Iran only bought a handful of them and have not yet decommissioned the older US built F-4's and F-14's.