Ed Rasimus wrote:

Those readers of RAM who have been following these postings as well as
Amir who has offered them might enjoy the background piece written by
Tony Cordesman on the Iran-Iraq war at:

http://www.csis.org/burke/reports/90...qII-chap13.pdf

I lack Ed's extensive knowledge of military aviation, but I'm pretty good
at English composition. So I was immediately suspicious of Amir's original
post because certain parts of it featured sophisticated prose that has
been absent from his other posts. It came as no surprise when another
poster revealed Amir's effort was copied from a web site. When somebody
does this on one post, I think it raises a red flag about the accuracy of
everything else he submits.

Moreover, scanning through Coredesman's piece I found this tidbit
regarding Iranian F-14 ops:

"According to most sources, the Phoenix missile systems and/or guidance
avionics in the Iranian F-14As were sabotaged when the war began, and have
not been operational since. The Phoenix systems are reported to have been
sabotaged by Iranian Air Force personnel friendly to the U.S. shortly
after the Shah's fall, although some sources report they were sabotaged by
Iranian revolutionaries to prevent air force operations. This meant Iran
could not make optimal use of its best fighter, or use an advanced
all-weather, air-to-air missile with good shoot-down capability and a
range up to 124 miles (200 km)."

Cordesman's conclusion that sabotage precluded Iranian use of the AIM-54
stands in square conflict with other posts by Amir. Even accounting for
the passage of time, the dimming of recollection, and a substantial TINS
factor, I remain VERY leery of his stories.