F-16s Destroy Purported Terror Camp in Iraq

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

U.S. Air Force F-16s obliterated three truck-mounted anti-aircraft weapons and killed 10 to 14 al Qaeda operatives near Fallujah on Tuesday, according to the military.

The military believes they were al Qaeda terrorists engaged in an operation targeting coalition aircraft.

We've had about 11 helicopters that have been shot at and hit over the last four months in that location," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, told ABC News.

Dramatic Video Documents Strike
The Department of Defense gave ABC News first access to imagery of the night operation that was carried out a little more than 48 hours ago.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3161579&page=1

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Attack targeted trucks, at least one with anti-aircraft weaponry mounted on it, and a training compound. (ABCNEWS.com)

[hobbit709]

1. And we're supposed to believe them why?

After the track record of shooting up wedding parties, women and children and who knows what else, it's gonna take more than a blurry image to convince me.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Color pictures coming in now!

[RL3AO]

3. Good. I was getting sick of our helicopters getting shot down by 1970's technology.

[Roland99]

4. "The military believes they were al Qaeda terrorists"

:eyes:

:eyes:

:eyes:

[RL3AO]

6. We have satellites that can ID peoples faces.

When we bomb someone, we have a damn good idea who they are.

[hobbit709]

7. So why can't they find Osama

or the WMDs or any of the other things they claim to have proof about?

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tempest]

9. We also have smart bombs that aren't so smart

And Patriot missiles that are extremely accurate. Oh wait, you mean they were a complete failure in intercepting Scud missiles during the first Gulf war? Never mind.

[heliarc]

11. Patriots are more accurate now...

I've heard on good source that it was a math problem (Maybe Bush did the calculation), and Smart Bombs are pretty accurate too... just that there are so few of them in the arsenal. I think I read somewhere that they make up only 5 percent of total tonnage.

[Tempest]

14. Hmmm...

How can you say Patriots are more accurate now if they haven't been battle tested? We were told after the first Gulf war of how accurate they were, yet they failed to intercept any Scuds.

And if our smart bombs are so smart, how come they regularly miss their target and hit the wrong buildings in Iraq?

[heliarc]

23. I can say that because...

I only know what I've heard, but a very trusted friend who's an EE and has looked at the math involved. There was a very clear error in the math that was used during Gulf war one... The error wasn't discovered until soon after the war. One of the classic blunders of Late Capitalist decentralized war. Hired gun science applying itself to many many crucial calculations. When too many companies build one weapons system that bases its functionality on 1s and 0s, its possible for monumental error to occur by a mere oversight. I believe it...

This from Wikipedia...

"The chief upgrade to the original GEM missile was a new, much faster proximity fused warhead. Tests had indicated that the fuse on the original PAC-2 missiles were detonating their warheads too late when engaging ballistic missiles with an extremely steep ingress, and as such it was necessary to shorten this fuse delay. The GEM missile was also given a new "low noise" seeker head designed to reduce interference in front of the missiles radar seeker, and a higher performance seeker designed to better detect low radar cross section targets, such as stealth aircraft. The GEM was used extensively in Operation Iraqi Freedom, with a perfect success rate."

Operation Iraqi Freedom was in 2003... Battle tested... at least according to Wikipedia.

Perhaps the math error involved that detonation latency.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Missile

Of Course... "Perfect success rate" means it can hit friendlies too... if perchance you confuse them with a bogey.


And about smart bombs... Sometimes hitting the wrong building is about faulty intelligence, or about user error (as when a bombs trajectory fails to take into account the landscap, or it's about using an inaccurate weapons system. So called "Smart weapons" as tonnage in the arsenal makes up an alarmingly small percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq. Most bombs are of types that have no guidance mechanism. Not to mention some bombs that are intentionally inaccurate... like cluster bombs that aren't accurate at all and even have a low percentage detonation... meaning not all of the bomblets explode right away. They have a habit of waiting till some kid decides to play in the field.

[Richard Steele]

12. Right. That's why we've NEVER bombed any innocent Iraqi or Afghani civilians.

:eyes:

[Tempest]

13. Those weren't wedding parties that were bombed

They were terrorists dressed in drag.

[coalition_unwilling]

15. Maybe they were children disguised as terrorists -n/t

[reprobate]

17. Or children disguised as truck mounted anti-aircraft weapons.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Just like that Red Cross building and that marriage.

A Red Cross is the ancient Al Qaeda symbol for "terrorist," and the marriage... well... hmm.

Maybe it was a gay marriage.

[Magleetis]

19. Take weddings for example

When we bomb a wedding we can see the bride and the groom. We can differentiate between the people in the wedding party and the guests. Boy are we good.

[tabasco]

25. How come the "mobile chemical laboratories" turned out to be

weather observation trailers? You have a lot to learn.

How about starting right here:

www.goarmy.com

[Cults4Bush]

29. Lmao!!

heheheehe... that was funny!

[chknltl]

5. Thank God no civilians were hit...

for a change. (This sarcasm brought to you by someone who stopped believing anything that bush would like me to believe regardless of the facts)

[The Stranger]

8. I was wondering that too -- how many kids died in this one.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. They were children disguised as terrorists -n/t

[chknltl]

21. Were they just out Trick or Treating?

We are soooo winning the hearts and minds of the good citizens of Iraq. If F-16s started bombing the drug dealers in my neighborhood...my neighborhod would come to side with the drug dealers even though most in my particular neighborhood do not use drugs!

[Grandrose]

10. Hope it was not a wedding party.....

or a family fleeing that nightmare we created over there!

The military believes they were al Qaeda terrorists engaged in an operation targeting coalition aircraft.

Believes vs know/fact???!!!:yoiks:

[ohio2007]

20. How do they know it wasn't a friendly AA mobile mount ?

Probably was a 'dummy' truck owned by a Domino's pizza delivery guy

[Earth_First]

22. Hold the presses!

"We've had about 11 helicopters that have been shot at and hit over the last four months in that location," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, told ABC News."

I thought that the 'official' story that these aircraft were shot down using RPG-14 shoulder fired rockets that were infiltrated into Iraq from Iran.

This story seems to say otherwise, and seems to change the 'official' story blaming the downed aircraft on anti-aircraft weapons.

[happyslug]

24. Truck Mounted AA Weapon????????

Stinger missiles and .50 Machine Guns can be carried in the truck of the Car, but have limited range. This has to be 20mm or better in size. These are NOT small weapons, they are the size as a good size artillery piece. How can ANYONE MISS them? i.e. How did they get to the Insurgents since we have had total control of the air Space even before the Invasion of March 30, 2003? We have controlled the roads since we took Baghdad in April 2003. This is like missing a tractor trailer in the US when no one else has anything bigger then a pickup. How bad is the situation in Iraq?

[IndianaGreen]

26. In a couple of days, Iraqi officials will be saying that innocent civilians were killed

this will be followed by the inevitable CENTCOM denial, only to be followed by publication of photos and videos confirming the Iraqi version of events. In a few weeks, our military will be forced to admit that civilians were killed, but it will stick to the excuse that the insurgents are using civilians as human shields.

We have seen this bullshit story repeated over and over again for the past 5 years. The burden of proof now lies on the US military.

[fujiyama]

28. ABC News...

God, this articles are pathetic. They sound like press clippings from the fucking Pentagon or WH. Why is anyone expected to believe anything that comes out of any government official?

I'm reminded of Colbert commenting on "journalists" being transcribers. He was dead on.