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AP Reporter Discovers US Military Aircraft in Iraq

This post from the AP is easily one of the dumbest posts I have ever read, and that is saying a lot when you consider the Associated Press and its long history of idiocy.

Lethal ‘flying gunships’ returning to Iraq
AP: Armed airplanes used in Vietnam War secretly moved to Iraqi base

...Snip

Lethal "Flying Gunships"? Well, one would hope if they are in fact "Gunships" that they would at some point prove to be "lethal" or what would be the point?

...Snip

In a secretive operation, heavily armed gunship versions of C-130 transport planes like these at an airbase in southern Iraq, on Wednesday, are being shipped to Iraq.

"Secretive"? Operation Iraqi Freedom is hardly a secret, and if it were, your blabbing about it would void that statement, dont'cha think?

...Snip

AN AIR BASE IN IRAQ - The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes — the lethal “flying gunships” of the Vietnam War — to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.

An AP reporter saw the first of the turboprop-driven aircraft after it landed at the airfield this week. Four are expected.

Well, it looks like someone got out of the hotel in the green zone and discovered a whole new world to cover.

The Iraq-based special forces command controlling the AC-130s, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, said it would have no comment on the deployment. But the plan’s general outline was confirmed by other Air Force officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Military officials warned that disclosing the location of the aircraft’s new base would violate security provisions of rules governing media access to U.S. installations.

Wow! Who Knew! Telling the enemy about our movement is considered "Bad" by the Military authorities. I would have never guessed...

The four-engine gunships, whose home base is Hurlburt Field in Florida, have operated over Iraq before, flying from airfields elsewhere in the region. In November 2004, air-to-ground fire from AC-130s supported the U.S. attack that took the western city of Fallujah from insurgents.

The result: We won in Falluja. Funny thing about how Al Qaeda neglected to get an air force.

Basing the planes inside Iraq will cut hours off their transit time to reach suspected targets.

You can almost hear the reporter want to ask how they can do this without a warrant.

The left-side ports of the AC-130s, 98-foot-long planes that can slowly circle over a target for long periods, bristle with a potent arsenal — 40 mm cannon that can fire 120 rounds per minute, and big 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The plane’s latest version, the AC-130U, known as “Spooky,” also carries Gatling gun-type 20 mm cannon.

Stop!, you're making me swoon...

The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops. In Vietnam, for example, they were deployed against North Vietnamese supply convoys along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where the Air Force claimed to have destroyed 10,000 trucks over several years.

Well, you have to work the Vietnam angle in somehow. The Reporter might be surprised to learn the B-52 was also used in "Vietnam", as well as the M-16 that all those camoflaged fellows around him are carrying...

The use of AC-130s in places like Fallujah, urban settings where insurgents may be among crowded populations of noncombatants, has been criticized by human rights groups.

The said same "Human Rights Groups" say very little about Terrorists groups subjecting civilian populations to being made into hostages, a direct violation of the Geneva Convention as well as common decency...

The slow-moving AC-130s also offer an intelligence gathering advantage in the Iraq fight: sophisticated long-range video, infrared and radar sensors.

I Know!!! Aint It The Coolest thing?...

American commanders are marshaling all available tools to detect the Iraqi insurgents’ stealthy operations, especially at night, when they plant roadside bombs targeting American road patrols and convoys.

Um... Mr. Reporter sir, the AC-130 is decidedly "Not Stealthy", and thats one of the beautiful things about it, it has one very nice feature.
It's "Scary". Fear - is a powerful motivator. "Hey Ali, lets go out tonight and bomb the girls school, er, uh, say... is that a Spectre Gunship? Ok, why don't we stay home and play canasta instead..."

The Air Force’s senior tactical commander in Iraq said the AC-130 can be both a high-intensity and low-intensity weapon.

I love it when they talk like that.

“It’s got tons of guns, and it’s got all kinds of stuff on it that can be applied to the problems you have,” Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, who refused to discuss the current AC-130 deployment, said in an AP interview.

"Problems" being those people who enjoy killing women and children for the express purpose of spreading terror in civilian populations under the guise of fanatic religiosity.

That “stuff” includes “the ability to take these high-tech pods and to use them to find guys planting (bombs) and to find other nefarious activity,” he said.

Don't look now Hadji, the Generals got your number...

The Predator drone — the MQ-1 unmanned aerial vehicle — has been a reconnaissance workhorse in Iraq, but Air Force officers say they don’t have enough to meet demand for missions. The fiscal 2007 Defense Department budget proposed last month by the Bush administration envisions spending $1.6 billion on additional reconnaissance drones.

Reconnisance - looking around. Spectre - Blowing things up. It's a "win-win" as far as I can tell.

Posted @ March 03, 2006 03:38 PM | Current Affairs

Posted by: jaed at March 5, 2006 12:11 PM

Posted by: Sam at March 7, 2006 01:15 PM