On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:48:11 -0400, (Paul Michael Brown)
wrote:

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.

I posted Cordesman's chapter since most folks in the US have seen him
appear with some regularity on cable news channels as a knowledgeable
commentator on military issues. He does a good job of comparing the
status of both Iraqi and Iranian air forces over the course of the
conflict.

His recount of the H-3 attack tracks reasonably with what Amir posted,
although the results from two flights of four F-4s on a fairly large
complex seem a bit exaggerated.

The real stumbler I encountered was the tale of Iranian tankers. Now,
I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in Turkey over the years.
In particular I was deploying regularly from '73 to '77 and
experienced the impact of the US arms embargo on US-Turkey relations
after the Cyprus incursion. By 1981, the embargo was lifted and
relations were rapidly improving both with the US and with NATO.

In '78 to '81 I was at Hq USAFE. That period, you may recall covered
the takeover of the Teheran embassy and the hostages. We had numerous
planning sessions trying to coordinate operations to deal with that
situation and tanker ops over Turkey and other nations in the region
were always difficult questions.

So, we are asked to believe that Turkey hosted a pair of Iranian
KC-137s at Istanbul--which is the far Eastern end of the nation,
nearly 800 miles from the Iraq/Turk border, at a time when Turkey was
1.) trying to make nice with the US, and 2.) at a time when Turkey was
hostile to Iran after the break-up of CENTO and the hostage-taking.

Further, we are asked to believe that Turkey (which carefully
monitored all non-national aircraft comings and goings as well as
loads) would be unaware that the KC's were preparing for a refueling
mission.

And, we are asked to accept that the tankers could leave Istanbul in a
coordinated mission with fighter from Iran, rendezvous over the enemy
territory and complete a refueling, then execute an attack and finally
have the tankers transit Iraq, Syria, Jordan and possibly some portion
of Saudi safely.

Almost anything is possible, but this one aspect is pretty hard for me
to deal with.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com