US "heroes" kill 9 children

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:19:34 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

As far as transport copters, the Iraqis had plenty of actual big Russian
transport copters, four-seat Bell machines aren't even going to rate.

4-seat?? I think that you'll find that Bell 214STs are considerably
larger than that!

Like those MiG-25s that were "still in service" buried under six feet of
sand, I suppose.

It gives an amagamated number for all of those helicopters, from all
nations. Some were no doubt out of service... but there's no evidence
that the American ones were particularly so.

Scott

In article ,
Scott MacEachern wrote:

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 04:19:34 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

As far as transport copters, the Iraqis had plenty of actual big Russian
transport copters, four-seat Bell machines aren't even going to rate.

4-seat?? I think that you'll find that Bell 214STs are considerably
larger than that!

I was referring to the Defenders, forgot about the "Super Transport"
214ST... lots of seats, no external hardpoints.

But still very tiny when compared to the monster Russian copters that
were in service in Iraq.

....and according to this story, only two of them were still in service
as of January...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,74743,00.html

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article ,
Scott MacEachern wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 18:24:42 -0800, Steve Hix
wrote:

All support, not attack types. (You *do* know what a Hughes 300 is,
right? Useful for initial training, not so useful for battlefield use.)

Yup. I also know about the various versions of the Hughes 500 ....
Hughes Defenders, AH-6/MH-6 and so on. In any case, this is not the
newsgroup where I'd expect to find dismissal of the military
importance of transport and training systems.

They didn't get AH-6/MH-6, did they?

were
delivered to Iraq, and were in service just before GW1. That's hardly
'a few small helicopters'.

Compared to the 215 Russian and 169 French military types in 1990, they
were.
(http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-equipment.htm)

120 US helicopters is insignificant compared to 169 French
helicopters? When do they start being significant? 130? 140? 150?

No, it was 120 (lots being Hughes 300s) compared to 384 others.

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 21:59:12 -0800, Steve Hix
wrote:

They didn't get AH-6/MH-6, did they?

No, I don't think that 160 SOAR lets too many out of their sight. So
what? The Defender's essentially the same aircraft. Point is, these
are hardly 'support types', as you said.

No, it was 120 (lots being Hughes 300s) compared to 384 others.

Gee, in that case are the 169 French helicopters insignificant
compared to the 335 (Russian and American) other ones? I'm interested
in the math that you're using for this. And 30 of the 126 were Hughes
300s.

Scott

In article ,
Scott MacEachern wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:30:40 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
"tw" wrote:

You know, people keep claiming that "supported him for so long" bit,
when all that happened was a short-term information trade during the war
with Iran, along with some sales of a few small helicopters (cancelled
after they started using them for non-civilian purposes)

Forty Bell 214STs and approximately 85 Hughes 300s and 500s were
delivered to Iraq,

For civilian use. Exactly. And then they supposedly stuck weapons on
them and used them for killing people (although nobody's managed to find
any of these armed 214s, and only a few MD-500s), and we stopped selling
things to them.

Pretty trivial when you compare to the thousands of tanks, fighter jets,
artillery pieces, *combat* helicopters, and other armaments sold to Iraq
for direct military purposes by pretty much everyone else.

Here's a little sample of Russian copter sales:

37 Mi-17/Hip-H
40 Mi-24D/Mi-25/Hind-D
12 Mi-24D/Mi-25/Hind-D
15 Mi-6T/Hook-A
90 Mi-8T/Hip-C
30 Mi-8TV/Hip-F

Then, of course, the French not only sold Iraq copters, but also sold
them the weapons systems to use *with* those copters.

and were in service just before GW1. That's hardly
'a few small helicopters'.

Compared to the rest of the stuff everyone else sold, it's damned near
invisible.

the reconnaissance data that America provided to Iraq was being
provided at the time that Iraq was using chemical weapons against
_Iran_.

....and you might note that the use of chemical weapons was part of the
reason we stopped dealing with Iraq in the late 1980s. Our total
involvement with Hussein lasted just four years, as opposed to 30+ for
many of our "allies."

You might note as well that Mark Pythian, in his book _Arming Iraq_

You mean "Arming Iraq : How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's
War Machine," which is really funny, since the US accounts for less than
1% of arms sales to Iraq over the last 30 years... it should be "How the
Soviet Union and Russia armed Iraq."

says that a number of the 214s were used in the gassing of the
Kurdish town of Halabja.

Funny... everyone else says that Halabja was gassed by bombs dropped
from planes. Several hours of regular artillery the day before, some
rockets that morning, and finished off with mustard and nerve gas.

No copters in the attack. And that's from multiple sources, including
Human Rights Watch.

Now, *some* people are claiming that copters were used, but the
eyewitness accounts only mention one copter flying on low to take photos
after the attacks, and they might have been describing the Iranian Huey
that flew some journalists in to cover the story.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

Facts are so inconvenient sometimes.

You are wating your time. These critics hate the US, and will no matter how
clearly you demonstrate their lack of reason.

Jarg

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Scott MacEachern wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:30:40 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
"tw" wrote:

You know, people keep claiming that "supported him for so long" bit,
when all that happened was a short-term information trade during the
war
with Iran, along with some sales of a few small helicopters (cancelled
after they started using them for non-civilian purposes)

Forty Bell 214STs and approximately 85 Hughes 300s and 500s were
delivered to Iraq,

For civilian use. Exactly. And then they supposedly stuck weapons on
them and used them for killing people (although nobody's managed to find
any of these armed 214s, and only a few MD-500s), and we stopped selling
things to them.

Pretty trivial when you compare to the thousands of tanks, fighter jets,
artillery pieces, *combat* helicopters, and other armaments sold to Iraq
for direct military purposes by pretty much everyone else.

Here's a little sample of Russian copter sales:

37 Mi-17/Hip-H
40 Mi-24D/Mi-25/Hind-D
12 Mi-24D/Mi-25/Hind-D
15 Mi-6T/Hook-A
90 Mi-8T/Hip-C
30 Mi-8TV/Hip-F

Then, of course, the French not only sold Iraq copters, but also sold
them the weapons systems to use *with* those copters.

and were in service just before GW1. That's hardly
'a few small helicopters'.

Compared to the rest of the stuff everyone else sold, it's damned near
invisible.

the reconnaissance data that America provided to Iraq was being
provided at the time that Iraq was using chemical weapons against
_Iran_.

...and you might note that the use of chemical weapons was part of the
reason we stopped dealing with Iraq in the late 1980s. Our total
involvement with Hussein lasted just four years, as opposed to 30+ for
many of our "allies."

You might note as well that Mark Pythian, in his book _Arming Iraq_

You mean "Arming Iraq : How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's
War Machine," which is really funny, since the US accounts for less than
1% of arms sales to Iraq over the last 30 years... it should be "How the
Soviet Union and Russia armed Iraq."

says that a number of the 214s were used in the gassing of the
Kurdish town of Halabja.

Funny... everyone else says that Halabja was gassed by bombs dropped
from planes. Several hours of regular artillery the day before, some
rockets that morning, and finished off with mustard and nerve gas.

No copters in the attack. And that's from multiple sources, including
Human Rights Watch.

Now, *some* people are claiming that copters were used, but the
eyewitness accounts only mention one copter flying on low to take photos
after the attacks, and they might have been describing the Iranian Huey
that flew some journalists in to cover the story.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Jarg" wrote...

These critics hate the US

Not particularly. I don't have much use for historical amnesia, though.

Scott

Chad Irby wrote ...
In article ,

For civilian use. Exactly.

Righty-ho. I may not like some of the people involved in the American
administration of the time, but I don't actually think that they were
as terminally stupid as you appear to believe. Selling 120+
helicopters to Iraq in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war... and you
actually believe that the American government expected that they would
be used for civilian purposes?? A number of your Congressmen certainly
didn't: they objected to the sales on just these grounds.

And you'll note that those helicopters were in the inventory of the
Iraqi army
just before GW2, according to that notorious Commie rag, the _IISS
Military Balance 1990 - 1991_.

Compared to the rest of the stuff everyone else sold, it's damned near
invisible.

Well, we'll disagree on that. I don't think an extra 120 helicopters
on strength is 'damned near invisible'... and it's certainly more than
"...a few small helicopters..."

...and you might note that the use of chemical weapons was part of the
reason we stopped dealing with Iraq in the late 1980s. Our total
involvement with Hussein lasted just four years, as opposed to 30+ for
many of our "allies."

It lasted longer than that: the Reagan administration opened things up
by taking Iraq off its list of terrorist states in 1982, and as late
as 1988 the administration was talking about Iraq's importance to
America. (Richard Armitage at that point told Congress there was no
international law preventing a leader from using WMDs on his own
people.)

In addition, that programme of providing reconnaissance information to
Iraq lasted until at least 1988, according to an NYT investigation on
the topic from last year, and that information was being provided
during operations when gas was known to be used. Essentially, what put
Saddam Hussein on America's bad books was invading Kuwait. Everything
up to that point -- including killing American sailors on the USS
Stark -- was forgivable.

Funny... everyone else says that Halabja was gassed by bombs dropped
from planes.

Well, no, actually they don't... as you say, some people say that
helicopters were used, others do not. None of the HRW reports I've
seen identify the means used to deliver the gas at Halabja, except to
the extent of saying that they were delivered by air. (They do talk
about use of aircraft in conventional attacks, including use of
napalm/phosphorous, earlier that day.)

Scott

In article ,
(Scott MacEachern) wrote:

Chad Irby wrote ...
In article ,

Funny... everyone else says that Halabja was gassed by bombs dropped
from planes.

Well, no, actually they don't... as you say, some people say that
helicopters were used, others do not.

The handful of reports that suggest helos were used at Halabja seem to
be confusing other reports from differnet towns, and even those are
pretty fragmentary.

The attack at Halabja was fighters dropping 250 pound chemical bombs.

That's the common report we've gotten from actual eyewitnesses.

Some editorial writers have grabbed the "they used helicopters to gas
Halabja" meme, but it's just wrong.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:57:27 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

The attack at Halabja was fighters dropping 250 pound chemical bombs.

That's the common report we've gotten from actual eyewitnesses.

I would be interested in knowing the source of that actual report,
then. (No dissing in this case, I would like to know where it comes
from, and to be able to judge for myself whether it is definitive.)

Scott