MISSILES FLEW ONCE THE PARTY ENDED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000400330001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 1, 1993
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

2ebruary 1, 1993/Army Times
13
Missiles
flew once
the party
ended
By William Matthews
Times staff writer
WASHINGTON ? Iraq's cease-fire
didn't last long.
Twenty-nine hours after promising not
to threaten U.S. planes over the northern
and southern no-fly zones, an Iraqi air de-
fense 'radar illuminated two Air Force
planes during a routine flight. The planes,
an F-4G Wild Weasel and an F-16 Fight-
ing Falcon, attacked the radar with bombs
and missiles.
A day later on Jan. 22, it happened
again. Two U.S. warplanes patrolling in
the northern no-fly zone were "locked on"
by Iraqi anti-aircraft radar, according to
Pentagon officials. One of the planes, an F-
4G, launched two High-speed Anti-Radia-
tion Missiles, or HARM, at the site near
Mosul, officials said.
The missiles apparently missed their
target.
The radar illuminations and the U.S. at-
tacks in response ended a brief cease-fire
declared by Iraqi President Saddam Hus-
sein as an inaugural olive branch to Presi-
dent Clinton.
Iraq announced Jan. 19 it would stop fir-
irkg oft edited planes over the norlhern and
southern no-fly zones at midnight, ending
hostilities for Clinton's Jan. 20 swearing-in.
But at 1:09 p.m. Iraqi time Jan. 21 ?
5:09 a.m. EST, as the new administration
awakened from late-night inaugural balls
? radar warning gear on the two U.S.
planes sounded, notifying the pilots they
were being tracked.
The F-4 fired a radar-homing missile at
the Iraqi radar site and the F-16 dropped
two cluster bombs on the installation, U.S.
European Command reported. Defense De-
partment officials were unable to say
whether the missile and bombs hit the ra-
dar installation.
Out of range
Minutes before the planes were illumi-
nated by radar, pilots reported seeing anti-
aircraft artillery flashes on the ground.
They did not respond to the flashes because
they were out of range and were escorting
a French Mirage on a reconnaissance mis-
sion, the European Command said.
The radar site was located in the north-
ern no-fly zone, about eight miles south-
west of the city of Mosul.
A Pentagon spokesman said U.S. forces
in the Persian Gulf region did not consult
with Clinton or Defense Secretary Les As-
pin before attacking the radar sites. "When
we're threatened, we react. We inform
them afterward," he said.
"We were hopeful that the cease-fire
would work," he added. "But we don't pay
attention to Saddam's words, only to his
deeds."
At the White House, Clinton said the pi-
lots did the right thing. "We're going to ad-
here to our policy" of attacking radar and
anti-aircraft sites when targeted, Clinton
said.
After the first incident, the Iraqi govern-
ment insisted the cease-fire remained in ef-
fect and denied the Pentagon's claim that
U.S. planes were illuminated by radar.
In other developments, Iraq permitted
U.N. weapons inspectors to fly unimpeded
into the country, a requirement of the
United Nations cease-fire resolutions Iraq
had been violating.
But Saddam announced he would begin
rebuilding a manufacturing plant destroyed
bye U.S. cruise missile attack Jan. 17. U.S.
officials said the plant, near Baghdad, was
used to make material for nuclear weapons.
Iraq also announced it was reopening ls
plant the U.S. said was a biological weap-
ons factory that was bombed during the
Persian Gulf War. Iraq said it was an in-
fant milk formula plant.
String of encounters
The Jan. 21 attack by U.S. planes on the
Iraqi radar site followed a string of encoun-
ters between U.S. and allied aircraft and
Iraqi radar and anti-aircraft artillery sites
in the northern no-fly zone immediately be-
fore Iraq announced the cease-fire.
The Defense Department said that from
Jan. 17 to the cease-fire, Iraqi forces were
aggressively painting coalition aircraft with
radar and firing on allied planes with anti-
aircraft artillery.
After two days, U.S. planes began to
strike back. On Jan. 19, a U.S. F-4G was
illuminated by radar about 14 miles east of
Mosul. The F-4 fired a HARM at the radar.
An hour later, an F-16 reconnaissance
plane was fired on by anti-aircraft artillery,
but was not hit. And two hours after that,
two F-16s were fired on by anti-aircraft ar-
tiII 12 miles north of Mosul. In re-
sponse, the F-16s dropped cluster bombs on
the artillery site, the Defense Department
said.
Bush Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams
said Iraqi warplanes were making a series
of quick flights into the no-fly zone Jan. 19,
"sticking a toe over the line" in hopes of
luring coalition aircraft into an anti-aircraft
missile trap.
Avoiding the trap
Before announcing its cease-fire, Iraq set
up an array of SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 anti-
aircraft missiles, Williams said. "They're
trying to lure coalition planes into the area
so they can shoot them down," he added,
but coalition planes were avoiding the trap.
The run-ins with Iraqi radar in the north
followed major strikes by U.S. and coalition
planes against missile sites in the southern
no-fly zone and an attack by U.S. cruise
missiles against a factory capable of produc-
ing weapons- grade material for nuclear
weapons.
Williams said the strikes "functionally
neutralized" Iraq's southern air defense ra-
dar system, destroying much of it and leav-
ing the remaining parts unable to commu-
nicate with one another.
In the cruise missile attack against the
weapons plant, Williams said, 45 missiles
were launched, one failed upon launch and
38 of the remaining 44 struck their targets.
Three landed short of the plant in an or-
chard, three landed inside the plant com-
pound, but did not hit any buildings, and
one apparently was hit by anti-aircraft fire
and crashed into the Al Rashid hotel in
Baghdad, killing two hotel workers and
wounding many workers and gdests.
Inside the weapons plant compound, the
cruise missiles destroyed four of seven
buildings, heavily damaged two others and
moderately damaged the seventh, the De-
fense Department said. .
Elsewhere in the region, the allied pod-
Lion appeared to have improved along the
Iraqi-Kuwait border.
Iraq staged provocative incursions into
Kuwait to retrieve military equipment in
early January, but by Jan. 19 had with-
drawn from the border, the Defense De-
partment said.
Tensions rising
36th parallel
TURKEY
Tigris River
KEY
-k Targets
?s? Carrier
task forces
MI "No fly"
zones
immi U.S.
soldiers
IRAN ,
? ?
0
JORDAN
400
MILES
- SAUDI
ARABIA
"NiffOgi
Persian Gulf chronology
Friday, Jan. 15
President Bush demands that Iraq
allow U.N. flights or face another
attack. Baghdad beaks off.
Saturday, Jan. 16
Iraq threatens to down allied
aircraft over the southern "no fly"
zone and over the northern zone
above the 36th parallel established
to protect Kurds.
Sunday, Jan. 17
U.S. jets down an Iraqi MiG-23
Flogger over the northern zone
and hit anti-aircraft missile sites
that fired on allied aircraft. Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein,
marking the anniversary of the gulf
war, declares: "The aggressors will
fail in their evil purpose." U.S.
warships fire 45 cruise missiles at
an alleged nuclear facility near
Baghdad, killing at least two
people.
Monday, Jan. 18
In the first daylight raids on Iraq,
U.S. and British aircraft, with
French planes providing air cover,
bomb Iraqi missile sites that
survived the Jan. 13 bombing in
the southern zone. U.S. jets bomb
Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries in the
northern zone. Iraq reports 21
dead.
Source: Associated Press
KUWAIT
Tuesday, Jan. 19
An F-4G "Advanced Wild Weasel"
fires a missile at a surface-to-air
missile and radar installation after
the radar "locks on" to the
American plane. Two F-16
Fighting Falcons drop several
cluster bombs on an Iraqi
anti-aircraft artillery site after
being fired on.
Wednesday, Jan. 20
An Iraqi-declared cease-fire takes
effect. Allied military surveillance
flights continue over the "no fly"
zones. About 300 men from the
U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division
travel by convoy to the Kuwait-
Iraq border area to counter any
assault. President Clinton is
sworn in.
Thursday, Jan. 21
An F-4G fires a HARM missile on
an Iraqi air defense radar site
about 10 miles south of Mosul
after the Iraqi installation turns its
radar on. U.N. weapons
inspectors land in Baghdad.
Friday, Jan. 22
An F-4G and an F-16 are targeted
by Iraqi anti-aircraft radar, near
Mosul. The F-4G launches two
HARMs in response.
AT FCC
Cristina Rivero
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14
Army nmes/February 1, 1993
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By William Matthews
Times staff writer
WASHINGTON ? It started with a prom-
ise that a live American POW would emerge
from the jungles of Southeast Asia in 30 days.
But 15 months later, at the end of the most
exhaustive investigation ever into the fate of
Americans missing from the Vietnam War, a
special Senate committee has concluded there
almost certainly is no one left to bring home.
There is "no compelling evidence that any
American remains alive in captivity in South-
east Asia," the Senate Select Committee on
POW/MIA Affairs reported Jan. 13.
And despite an intense search, the commit-
tee turned up no evidence that there ever was
a government conspiracy to leave behind pris-
oners of war, or POWs, or withhold knowledge
of their fates, the committee said. "The con-
spiracy cupboard is bare," the committee said
in its 1,000-page report.
While conceding that, it is impossible to say
with absolute certainty that no American is
being held captive anywhere in Cambodia,
Laos or Vietnam, the committee said evidence
gathered over the past 10 years offers no
encouragement.
No live-sighting report checked out, photos
said to be of POWs proved fraudulent, leads
led nowhere and even the best evidence was
inconclusive, the committee said.
In its search, the committee combed
through thousands of pages of previously clas-
sified military documents, repeatedly visited
Vietnam and questioned scores of U.S. offi-
cials, military men, POW activists, family
members, Vietnamese government officials,
missionaries and others.
The efforts yielded evidence, and in many
instances, "tantalizing evidence that raises
questions," said committee chairman Sen.
John Kerry. "But evidence is not fact and not
proof."
Kerry, D-Mass., a Vietnam veteran, said
the massive amount of information the inves-
tigation amassed provides the nation with "a
reality base" with which to deal with the POW
and missing-in-action, or MIA, issue. ?
For example, the Defense Department's
count of MIAs from the Vietnam War is mis-
leading, he said.
The Pentagon lista 2,264 Americans as un-
accounted for. In fact, nearly half of those ?
1,095 ? are known to have been killed, but
their bodies never were recovered, Kerry said.
Among the remaining 1,169 missing, 305
"were either known to have been taken cap-
tive or were lost in circumstances under which
survival was deemed likely or at least reason-
ably possible," Kerry said. "There is no indi-
cation at this time that any survive."
Committee member Sen. Jesse Helms, R-
N.C., who promised at the beginning of the in-
vestigation to produce a live American POW,
apologized for missing most of the committee's
meetings. He underwent heart surgery. ?
The committee's investigation was "as good
a job as could possibly have been done,' he
said.
"I associate myself with [the committee re-
port]," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa,
who frequently challenged government offi-
cials who said there was little likelihood that
Americans remained in captivity.
However, Grassley and Sen. Robert Smith,
R-N.H., included footnotes to the report that
said they did not agree with the majority of
committee members that there is little evi-
dence of Americans POWs in Southeast Asia.
They said they put much greater credence in
live-sighting reports and aerial photographs of
what appear to be signals stamped or dug into
fields.
Grassley called for continued investigation
of possible distress signals and demanded a
Justice Department probe of possible illegal,
privately funded covert operations approved
by the White House to search for missing
Americans in Laos in the 1980s.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former POW
who has consistently has discounted the passi-
bility that Americans remain alive as prisoners
in Southeast Asia, said, "I have yet to see evi-
dence that I can point to and say, 'See, there's
an American alive.' " However, McCain said, it
remains a mystery why so many pilots were
shot down over Laos and so few prisoners
returned.
One of the committee's most startling find-
ings was that Nixon administration officials
believed there might have been POWs in
Southeast Asia when they announced in 1973
that all captives had been returned home.
But, the committee concluded, the U.S. gov-
ernment did not "knowingly abandon" troops
in captivity. "American officials did not have
certain knowledge that any specific prisoner or
prisoners were being left behind," the report
says.
The Senate committee also said it found the
Defense Intelligence Agency guilty of overclas-
sification. It also was evasive, unresponsive,
defensive about criticism, slow to follow up on
live sightings and frequently distracted from
its basic mission, the committee said. But,
"we found no evidence to link anyone in the
government to a cover-up," Smith said.
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44 -
Army Timesifebruiry 1, 1993
People By Karen lowers
No kidding, UFOs are out there,
say former service members
By Karen Jowers
LIFE IN THE TIMES staff writer
&tired Army Mad. Ed Dames' company uses special-
ized intelligence techniques to study current UFO opera-
tions in the New Mexico desert
Dames, who says he has firsthand knowledge of UFOs,
is president of Psi Tech in Albuquerque, N.M., a private
company that studies UFOs. He is writing a book.
Djimes describes strange alien machines going under-
groi4nd in the desert. He and other former military mem-
interviewed talk about their ongoing research on
alien activity and "mental abductions," in which aliens en-
ter the minds of earthlings for hours. They disagree on
many issues in their research, but they all take a stand
against widespread ridicule of UFOs.
Psi Tech takes private and government scientists to se-
cret sites where the company has found repeated UFO
activity. He and eight other off-duty or retired military of-
fiats who work for the company use a technique called
remote viewing, which involves training the unconscious
to explore a target with rigorous discipline while suppress-
ing the imagination, he says. They are not psychics, he
says.
Dames was an Army intelligence officer until he retired
in 1991. He started Psi Tech in 1989. The company works
for a number of clients, including private companies.
Their work does not deal just with UFOs. For instance,
they gave information to United Nations officials about
underground biological warfare research and development
facilities in Iraq just before the Persian Gulf war.
Others who are or have been connected with the mili-
tary also investigate UFO reports.
For instance, there is the 4,500-member Mutual UFO
Network, Inc. (MUFON), some of whose members have
been members of the military. Former Air Force Capt.
Kevin Randle and retired Air Force Maj. George
Filer, who both served in intelligence, will speak at
MUFON conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 8.
The focus of the conference is the question of whether
the governmenVis hiding the truth about UFOs, a preoc-
cupation Dames doesn't like.
Among those convinced the government is withholding
information is Randle, a Vietnam veteran and an intelli-
gence officer in the Air Force Reserve for 10 years. He
wrote UFO Crash at Roswell with Don Schmitt, pub-
lished in 1991 by Avon Books. Randle is now an inactive,
reservist. -
Randle is convinced a crash near Roswell Army Airfield,
N.M., July 4, 1947, involved a flying saucer, and was cov-
ered up by the federal government. The official explana-
tion is that a military balloon crashed.
Randle and Schmitt have interviewed more than 400
people, including 37 who say they handled pieces of -the _
flying saucer debris and eight witnesses who say they saw
bodies of dead aliens recovered at the crash site.
Filer awe he has talked to more than 50 people who
claim they have been mentally abducted by aliens.
Dames shares some of Randle's and Filer's conclusions.
He says Psi Tech has compiled evidence of mental abduc-
tions. He believes that's what happened at Roswell in
1947. Aliens orchestrated the crash in the minds of the
witnesses, using highly technical methods to create an illu-
Alien ship? The arrow points to an alleged UFO that Ed
and Frances Walters show in their book, The Gulf Breeze
Sightings (Morrow, 1990). Photo was taken in Gulf
Breeze, Fla., in 1987.
sion in their brains. Neither bodies nor debris ever existed,
he claims. (Randle scoffs at this theory, and says he has
held in his hand a piece of debris that one witness claims
to have taken from the scene.)
What happened at Roswell is similar to other "mental
abductions," Dames says. In Psi Tech's remote viewing,
"We have Been the [Roswell witnesses] standing outside in
a catatonic state, or lying in bed, or driving up and down
the road, while these 20 or so spheres moved overhead,
zigzagging back and forth from person to person."
The military's unusual way of remembering events
By Loretta Howard
sped,a to LIFE IN THE TIMES
Hurry up! Be here now! Be there then!
Don't be late! Be on time! Time! In our
fast-paced world, time is a valuable com-
modity.
Our day-to-day schedules are dependent
on traditional watches and clocks: Wake
our spouses for physical training at 0400;
get the children off to school by 0730; be on
the job by 0830; stop by the commissary for
more bread and milk before lunch ends at
1300; leave work at 1730; stop by youth
set Aces to pick up children from practice
at 1800; and so on. A typical schedule all
based on exact timing is part of our daily
existence.
Military families have an additional and
unusual way of telling time. We measure
time periods by location. This is the stan-
dard by which we retain memories.
The longer we have been military and
the more locations we have shared, the
more we use this method. Once we have
been in the military lifestyle for more than
one location, we almost always answer the
question of "when" with "where."
When did our youngest daughter learn to
ski? That was Germany the third time.
When was our son named most valuable
player in a basketball championship? This
happened the second tour in Germany.
When did we first learn of the sport of
throwing buffalo chips? Oklahoma. When
did a tornado hit a nearby town? Missouri.
When did I have my appendix out? Korea.
During the Persian Gulf war, I was
working for a bank in the Maryland sub-
urbs of Washington, D.C. My friends and
co-workers were predominately people who
had never had direct contact with a mili-
tary lifestyle. The majority had grown up
and even attended college in the same gen-
eral area.
Aside from numerous worldwide vaca-
tions, all of their lives had been spent in
the Northeast corridor. After my 16 years
as an Army spouse, this ws.s the first time I
took the time to notice that place associa-
tion is characteristic of-military families.
Initially, it was a matter of translation.
For instance, once during our lunch break,
there was a discussion about the best age
to allow your teen-age children to date.
-5
3
Right away I thought Georgia and Mary-
land. Our two oldest began dating when we
were in Georgia and the youngest ones
were just starting during our time in Mary-
land. Therefore, the oldest had to wait un-
til age 16, but the younger ones were dat-
ing at 14.
Another time some friends and I were
discussing when we became interested in
the banking or business aspect of our para-
legal field. I responded with Germany,
which I then translated to the late 1980s.
My co-workers were amazed with the
system but quick to acknowledge its poten-
tial usefulness. One friend and fellow em-
ployee, a former Air Force man, was de-
lighted to hear the old system again.
Many people spend their entire lives in
one geographic location. We all know peo-
ple who live near or in the home in which
they grew up. .
While, of course, there is nothing wrong
with this lifestyle, it does require a more
exact method of analyzing time than we in
the military have.
I remember my brother's wedding as our
second time assigned to Georgia. Other
people would have to remember August
1983. That seems harder, somehow.
Sometimes, military families complain
about the problems of each move with the
implication that it would be easier to re-
main in one location. This special item was
broken; that heirloom was lost.
It is work to get the kids to adjust to the
new environment. Shopping was better at
the old location. Windows are never the
same size as the 40 pairs of curtains that
you shipped. Life is not perfect but each
move achieves a new perspective for our
place-time memory.
Being aware of the value of our place-
time association gives the military family
an additional positive aspect to look at dur-
ing the next reassignment. We are moving
along our own historical timeline with the
advantage of new, exciting locations to
spark our memories. Where do you remem-
ber for 1992?
Loretta Howard is a paralegal and free-lance
writer married to an Army sergeant first class
assigned to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000400330001-7