Can anyone help me disprove anything in this email about buried Migs?

[Cannikin]

Just received this from my very Republican friend...nothing gives me more pleasure than debunking her emails and hitting 'reply to all' to send it back to everyone she sent it to. Unfortunately, I dont have much to go on with this one:





All photos courtesy of MSGT T. Collins, USAF


..............SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS...............



The Iraqi jet, an advanced Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, was found buried in the sand after an informant tipped off U.S. troops.

The MiG was dug out of a massive sand dune near the Al Taqqadum airfield by U.S. Air Force recovery teams. The MiG was reportedly one of over two dozen Iraqi jets buried in the sand, like hidden treasure, waiting to be recovered at a later date. Contrary to what some in the major media have reported, not all the jets found were from the Gulf War era.

The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat being recovered by U.S. Air Force troops in the photos is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the West and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare devices.

U.S. Air Force recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the MiG, which is over 70 feet long and weighs nearly 25 tons.

The Foxbat is known to be one of Iraq's top jet fighters. The advanced electronic reconnaissance version found by the U.S. Air Force is currently in service with the Russian air force. The MiG is capable of flying at speeds of over 2,000 miles an hour, or three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes of over 75,000 feet.

The recovery of the advanced MiG fighter is considered to be an intelligence coup by the U.S. Air Force. The Foxbat may also be equipped with advanced Russian-and French-made electronics that were sold to Iraq during the 1990s in violation of a U..N. ban on arms sales to Baghdad

The buried aircraft at Al Taqqadum were covered in camouflage netting, sealed and, in many cases, had their wings removed before being buried more than 10 feet beneath the Iraqi desert.

X Marks the Spot

The discovery of the buried Iraqi jet fighters illustrates the problem faced by U.S. inspection teams searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is larger in size than California, and the massive deserts south and west of Baghdad were used by Saddam Hussein to hide weapons during the first Gulf war.

U.S. intelligence sources have already uncovered several mass grave burial sites in the open deserts with an estimated 10,000 dead hidden there. In addition, Iraq previously hid SCUD missiles, chemical weapons and biological warheads by burying them under the desert sand.

U.N. inspection teams found the weapons in the early 1990s after detailed information of the exact locations was obtained.

Top U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay is known to favor human intelligence as the primary means to find Iraq's hidden treasure trove of weapons and secrets.

While there are rumors of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons being shipped to nearby Syria, the weapons may very well still remain inside Iraq buried under the vast desert wastelands.

Some critics of the Bush administration have claimed that the inability of U.S. forces to uncover weapons of mass destruction is proof that the president misled the nation into the war with Iraq.

However, in recent days the critics have fallen silent as word quietly leaked from Iraq that major discoveries have already been made and are now being documented completely. Bush administration officials are keeping any such discoveries secret for the moment. Pray they will find something to close the mouth of all his critics before election day.



Stay Safe! Stay Alert! Stay Healthy!

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of all who threaten it"

[Occulus]

1. One single answer:

keeping these things secret due to political motivations is just as bad as never finding them in the first place.

[Bridget Burke]

2. What's the source? Where's a link?

All I can see is a bunch of prose. Fantasy, science fiction, lies?

[Redhead488]

3. The buried MIGs is true

Other stuff may be BS.

[StClone]

4. Yes she is right

Buried jets deep in sand without runways and without pilots are very dangerous!

[Caution]

5. HOw about this.

There were no restrictions imposed regarding the use/purchase of airplanes. There were no fly zones imposed, but im thinking buried migs weren't in the no fly zone now were they. Additionally, the reason these planes were buried is simple. If they weren't buried they would have been destroyed by the US military. So why the hell would we consider a country a threat which would bury multi-million dollar advanced fighter planes in the desert for fear of destruction by our military.

If anything this discovery simply proves that even the Hussein knew that he couldnt possibly hope to pose any threat to the US.

[NMDemDist2]

6. that is a true story

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp#add


Course, having buried all their aircraft to protect them from US bombing missions long before the "war" broke out made the aircraft fairly unthreatening to troops I should think

[Supormom]

7. This email has been circulating for over a year now.

It is old news and no news.

[bullimiami]

8. There were some buried Migs found...

Last year.

""The preceding photographs are authentic, originally published by the U.S. Department of Defense on August 6, 2003 and credited to Master Sgt. T. Collins of the USAF. The accompanying text, though this version purports to be an "unclassified excerpt" from an unspecified document, was lifted verbatim from a NewsMax.com article of the same date.""

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_mig_buried_iraq6.htm

[northzax]

9. the MiGs are true

but the whole thing about the 'advanced avionics' please. What exactly was Saddam Hussein going to do with these planes? nothing has flown over Iraq qithout USpermission sincethe first Gulf War. I think we might notice if the Russian flew in a MiG.

and see, the thing about advanced aircraft is they are a bitch to fly, you have to train all the time. I think we might have noticed that, as well, huh?

[Maestro]

10. The buried migs are true

but they were buried during the first Gulf War and are completely unusable. Neo-cons like to point to this as some sort of way saying, "See we told you he was hiding something." The fact is most of the buried things they are finding were hidden a decade or more ago.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. What else is buried??

>>but they were buried during the first Gulf War and are completely unusable. Neo-cons like to point to this as some sort of way saying, "See we told you he was hiding something." The fact is most of the buried things they are finding were hidden a decade or more ago.<<

The most important thing buried in Iraq is oil.

Don't hate me cuz I'm

[Webster Green]

11. Mass graves could be Poppy's doing....

Didn't U.S. forces bulldoze Iraqi troops during the desert storm invasion?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. "Mass graves could be Poppy's doing...."

Didn't U.S. forces bulldoze Iraqi troops during the desert storm invasion?<<

No kidding? I did see that column that was lit on "nuclear" fire with DU while retreating from Kuwait. I thought that was rather nasty. There must've been a few bodies lying around that massacre... them A-10's are a wicked piece of hardware.

Don't hate me cuz I'm

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

12. Give them the list that Bush* gave us about Saddam's WMD's

You know, the one with the half a million gallons of anthrax or so.
Then tell them we've found a dozen sarin gas shells that were probably made in the 80s, a SINGLE fighter jet, and what else?
That was worth the death of nearly 900 American troops and untold thousands of civilian deaths.
Also, they quoted David Kay. David "We were all wrong" Kay. Throw that quote back in their face: the one where he pretty much said the entire Bush* administration was wrong about Iraq's WMD programs.

Here's a google search for "David Kay we were all wrong"

www.google.com/search?q=david+Kay+We+were+all+wrong&sourceid=firefox&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Considering that the Bush admin is taking many hits on their incorrect assessment of Iraq's WMD status, you'd think they would trumpet these findings all the time. But they're not. Why is that?
The email that was sent to you even includes this gem: "U.N. inspection teams found the weapons in the early 1990s after detailed information of the exact locations was obtained. "
The early 90's? Well, duh. We knew that. But you should also find the video clips of Colin Powell and C. (I can't spell her first name) Rice stating that Hussein has been disarmed. It's in F 9/11.
It's also here:
www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

Also, demand proof. Just a cleverly worded essay isn't proof enough.
Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, hit 'em with proof, and they'll stay on the mat.
Or at least not bother you with false e-mails like this one.

[Cat Atomic]

13. This is not a Weapon of Mass Destruction:

[leesa]

14. So What? What possible threat was this to us?

[coda]

16. Burying their GD planes is supposed to show what a threat they were?

Iraq fights the "Mother of all Wars" with kalashnikovs and RPGs and leaves the good shit buried. :shrug:


"However, in recent days the critics have fallen silent as word quietly leaked from Iraq that major discoveries have already been made and are now being documented completely."

ROTFLMAO, yeah you can hear a pin drop.

It isn't considered an "intelligence coup", in reality it's just an old, old e-mail.

[jmowreader]

18. Partly true, partly hysteria

The MiG-25's are true:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp

How usable they'd be I do not know--the MiG-25 is made from steel, steel rusts in the presence of moisture, and there's moisture in the sand. They could coat the whole plane with Cosmolene, and that would keep the rust at bay--but how would you like to be the poor bastard who had to get all the cosmolene off a 70-foot airplane?

Also consider: the MiG-25 is no "fighter"--it is an air defense interceptor. It goes like hell but turns very poorly. It is also the only plane Mikoyan and Gureyevich designed that can't work from an unimproved airfield.

I'm certain those 900 guys are overjoyed they died to save the world from the contents of the Baghdad Military Museum.